


the fire kiss of a seraphim

by beneathyourbravery



Series: the poison pen [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Breathplay, Clubbing, Dirty Talk, Explicit Sexual Content, Finger Sucking, First Time Blow Jobs, Heartbreak, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, POV Alternating, Past Huang Ren Jun/Lee Donghyuck | Haechan, Poetry, References to Depression, Religious Undertones, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:02:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 42,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29839875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beneathyourbravery/pseuds/beneathyourbravery
Summary: “Do all the boys you meet throw themselves to the ground for you?”“Almost all,” Donghyuck whispers, “Would you do it for me, Mark?”“I wouldn’t kneel for anyone,” Mark whispers back, goosebumps raising on the pale skin of his chest when Donghyuck runs the nail of a finger down its center, leaving a faded red line behind. “Some things are reserved for holier grounds.”Mark Lee has a novel to write, a notebook filled with poems and enough sadness to drown the whole world in black—a color as dark as the one tinting top-model Lee Donghyuck's broken heart.And then, in the middle, they crash.
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Huang Ren Jun/Liu Yang Yang, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee, Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: the poison pen [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2200185
Comments: 52
Kudos: 249





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> it's finally here! the story i've been working on for the past couple of months is seeing the light, and i hope you will enjoy the trip it'll take down the road of the lives of these two very sad boys. writing this has been a rough journey, so please treat mark and donghyuck gently and trust there will always be better things to come (ꈍᴗꈍ)♡
> 
> also, the “poems” mark writes are actually stuff i came up with on my own so 🥺 please be gentle with them uwu 
> 
> very special thank you to everyone who's had to deal with me talking non-stop about this fic for weeks for having been nothing but supportive to me, especially lu, vic and alba—some little things inside this story are all thanks to you ♡
> 
> hope you'll enjoy!

### Nightmares and lost dreams

_Wanting is the doom of mankind; greed is a sin, that you know, but oh—how delicious it is, to take until you’re sated, chest blooming under the promise of the impossible._

It goes like this: there’s a hand around Donghyuck’s neck, making his eyes droopy with the delirious feeling that comes with well-calculated oxygen loss, and ragged breathing against his ear, wordless sounds that take the shape of a demon bigger than any other he’s ever encountered before. With a paused, almost hazy blink of the eyes, he wonders what it would take for the wall he’s pressed up against to open up and swallow him whole; concrete parting pliantly under the desperate cry of a broken soul, taking away all the pain and leaving behind nothing but ecstacy of the kind he adores the most.

Unconsciously, Donghyuck thinks he too would make a good poet, if he often didn’t only find the words in moments like these.

“Will you,” Donghyuck almost wheezes, when the fingers pressing down on the sides of his neck let up, chapped lips hovering over his swollen own, “Will you still write about me, once you get rid of me?”

A pained expression makes a frugal pass through Mark Lee’s face at the words. It only lasts for a short fraction of a second, but Donghyuck already knows it will stay engraved on the back of his retine forever; proof of his wrongdoings, yet another thread to which to cling on the darkest nights.

At this, Mark says nothing—kisses him like he means it, as if he could change his heart through act alone, as if words were not a tangible enough vehicle for what he wishes to feel yet will never be allowed to.

For Donghyuck, it’s all fine. He understands loss better than anyone, after all.

### The stained wall

_it must be hard, living a life you don’t want, for it is hard for me to simply live, any kind of life. i don’t wanna be here, i just don’t belong — please forget about me, please just let me go._

Ten cuts off the call before Mark has time to come up with an excuse for himself.

The _beep_ sound that comes from the other side of the line resonates loudly inside the cavern of Mark’s skull, and he winces right as he drops his phone on top of his bed. The device bounces once, twice on the mattress before taking a final jump and crashing into the floor face down, and Mark simply wishes he had enough strength to pick it up and check if any damage has been done.

It’s a nice metaphor for his heart, he thinks with a grim expression tugging wrongly at all the edges of his face—broken and stomped and beautifully ignored, its cracks less painful as long as they’re kept away from view. He makes a mental note to write it down somewhere, if he ever manages to move a muscle, anyways.

It’s only by the third time his phone vibrates violently against the wooden floor with an incoming call that Mark pushes himself to reach over and grab it again.

“What,” he says flatly, barely suppressing the groan that bubbles past his lips at the effort it takes to rearrange himself under the covers.

“Mark,” Ten hisses into the speaker, resembling a snake a little bit too much, “Listen, I’m sorry, alright? I needed a moment to think about what to say—and hey, I’ve already thought about it! No need to get mad, alright?”

“I’m not mad,” Mark sighs, rolling onto his right side and curling up into a ball, as if the world would take mercy on him and swallow him away like that, “My phone fell to the ground, that’s why I couldn’t pick it up before.”

“That’s fine! Look, Markie, listen to me,” _cause you clearly won’t listen to me_ , Mark bitterly hums inside his brain, “It doesn’t matter if your idea isn’t… that much of an idea yet, okay? Really, we don’t have to hurry that much anyways, but how about—if you could hand me a little draft by, let’s say, the end of next week?”

The grimace that scrunches Mark’s nose at the obviously phony chirpy tone in Ten’s voice is almost painful in its mockery. Staring up at the growing water stain on the corner of the bedroom’s ceiling, he wonders if a little paint will be enough to fix it all; wonders if it will be as useless as it is on himself, hiding but not healing the rotten parts of his soul, ever growing and destructive in the ugliest of ways.

“I,” Mark starts, then stops, the beginning of a headache starting to throb in between his eyebrows, “Ten— _hyung_ , I’m, I’m not— I can’t promise that. I can’t do that.”

“Of course you can, Mark, c’mon,” his editor sighs on the other side of the line, and the disappointed little sound tears open another cut on the fragile shell that is Mark feigned composure, “You know I hate to put pressure on you but, it’s already been six months since we published _Mad City_ , and even though it was a total success we—”

“We can’t afford to lose the public’s interest cause I’m not that good of a writer, I know it all,” Mark cuts him off, sharp like a blade and self-loathing like no one else, “You don’t have to repeat it all over again.”

“Of course you’re that good of a writer! Why else would I be working with you then, huh?” Ten snaps, “What I mean is that we have to make the most of it while they still have your name fresh on their minds, because that will make them buy your next book without even giving a glance to the summary!”

It is Mark’s turn to sigh, now, defeat unaccepted yet still worn like a badge on his chest. “I don’t think you even heard what I told you before you hung up,” he says with all the confidence he can muster up, “I said I don’t wanna write another science-fiction novel, Ten. Even if it’s what the public—”

“Mark, honestly, just submit the draft and I swear—”

“No,” Mark is almost surprised by how loud he speaks, his heart almost leaping out of his throat alongside the syllable, “I can’t submit a draft I do _not_ have, hyung. And I told you— I wanna try poetry this time, why can’t I just—”

“You know what, that’s it, I can’t do this anymore,” Ten sounds like a broken mixtape made out of anguish and exasperation, screeching uncomfortably into Mark’s ear as his footsteps resonate through the speaker of his phone, “here, _you handle him, please knock some fucking sense into his head_ —”

“Hyung?” Mark frowns, the fight dying down inside him as he hears rustle and groaning on the other side of the call, “Hyung, I’m so—”

“Mark?” Johnny asks, confusion rubbing his edges soft, “What’d you do? Ten looked like he’d aged twenty years when he barged into my office.”

“I,” Mark tries, but the words die pitifully on his tongue, “He… wants me to submit a draft for another novel soon.”

“Well, and? What did you think being a writer under his wing would entail? I’ve told you how strict of an editor he is, you can’t possibly expect him not to want you to—”

“I told him I don’t wanna write another sci-fi novel—it was fun, yeah, but I ended up fucking _hating_ cyberpunk and it’s what Ten wants me to write, and—”

The line goes dead in an instant and, for a brief moment, Mark spares the heavens a prayer and begs for something to come and take him away—a violent surge of strong wind, the scorching explosion of a volcano, a flood of water so thick it will leave no traces of him behind. But redemption will not come, today nor any other day of his doomed life, and so he swallows back another whine and finishes with a little lame— “and I wanna do poetry, hyung.”

Mark has to take the phone away from his ear and look at the screen for a moment just to check if Johnny has hung up on him too, for the silence that meets him on the other side is as unsettling as it is deafening. The call is still running, and so Mark pushes the phone between the side of his face and the pillow one more time, and then hopes for the reprimand that is sure to come his way to be merciful enough not to leave him in tears.

“You…” Johnny says then, and it is followed by a slow exhale of breath that scratches at Mark’s ear and leaves him tingling from both anxiety and discomfort, something uncertain behind the wordless sound, “Markie, you know Ten only works with novelists, right? And you know how difficult it was to get you a place with him, since—”

“Yeah, I know I suck and that I’m only here because of you Johnny, no need to rub it in any more,” Mark grunts, exasperated, the weight of an invisible rock heavy inside his chest and uncomfortable against his ribs when he tries to breathe.

“That’s not true,” Johnny is quick to say, sharp and serious like Mark has grown used to hearing him when it comes down to stuff like this, “You’re a fucking great writer and I had nothing to do with it so, for one, stop putting yourself down because you’ve got no reason to, and for two—”

“Why is it so wrong for me to want to explore something else? Why can’t I just—Hyung, I’ve got no inspiration for another stupid sci-fi novel, just—”

“It’s not wrong, Mark! You can do that and still do your job—shit, dude, just start writing anything and Ten will be happy as long as you send him something, and you can work out the rest later. I promise you! I do that all the time!”

It is now Mark’s turn to stay quiet, the only sound going into his speaker that of the rustling of his own covers as he pulls them over his head and closes his eyes in a futile attempt at making the world around himself disappear. It’s not the first time he’s tried, and so he already knows the result he will get way before he’s forced to come outside again—for it won’t be the first time, either, that the world keeps turning without allowing him to fall off its face with the motion.

“Markie,” Johnny says again, and it’s much softer this time—less like an annoyed workmate and more like the best friend he is, Mark’s only shelter in his every rainy day, the person who knows him best in the whole entire universe, “Listen, why don’t you turn on your cam? We can FaceTime and—”

“No,” Mark mumbles, and even his voice sounds small and broken, façade breaking down at the inevitable weight of the outside world’s reality dawning onto him, “I can’t.”

“Are you still in bed or something?” Johnny teases. A moment later, even through the phone, Mark is able to sense the way his face probably morphs into concern, “You are, aren’t you? Mark, it’s 3PM, you have to—”

“I know,” Mark sighs, and it takes him great effort not to start crying right on this very moment, “I’m just—it’s a bad day, hyung. Just a bad day.”

“You have to eat,” Johnny is firm and will not relent, and sometimes Mark is grateful for it and sometimes he wishes Johnny would grow to hate him just like everyone else has, “Mark, you can’t just hide away in your bed like that, it’s not—” Mark knows. Knows it’s not good, knows it’s not healthy, knows it won’t fix a thing, and still it’s the only thing he can do; because one day the strength to keep going just left him and he ruined everything only for this: solitude of the saddest kind, loneliness for the heart and for the soul, a coffin for his every word and a grave for every dream he’d thought to have— “How long has it been since you last went outside?”

“Monday,” comes Mark’s simple reply, a pillow held tight against his chest in an attempt at cushioning the rise-and-fall of his ribcage along to the tune of his ragged breaths.

“It’s _Friday_ , Mark, c’mon! You need a little bit of air, even if it’s just to go buy groceries—”

“I mean last Monday. As in, last week.”

The line goes dead silent once again, and it’s a surprise, really, that Johnny still hasn’t ended the call nor his friendship with Mark.

As he waits for a reply, Mark lets himself reminisce about the better days, if only to find a reason to which he can cling just not to ruin the last good thing still standing in his life—namely Johnny Suh, and his contagious humor and his older brother complex, and the way he so selflessly deals with the mess Mark became right in front of his very own eyes—,

and so he thinks.

_i miss the way i used to mind about whether you’d be there if i dared to show up._

* * *

When he thinks about it, years away from then, Mark realizes college years truly were the best time of his life.

Leaving home in Canada for Seoul at eighteen wasn’t easy, but Mark had a dream he was set on fulfilling and a girlfriend willing to walk with him to the end of the world if only it meant he would be happy. And happy he was—with an undergrad in Literature and a masters in Creative Writing and a group of friends he wouldn’t change for the world, and a fiancée he was decided to marry once they were both done with their studies and with a job stable enough for them to start building a life together as husband and wife.

Johnny Suh, Mark meets when he is twenty-three in a seminar during his postgrad, a wannabe writer just like himself with too many ideas bubbling inside his brain and a notebook filled with endless summaries and stray sentences that mean nothing and everything at once. Johnny, at twenty-seven, too comes from far away with a long trail of disappointments behind, a bag packed full of dreams and too much hope inside the chest, and he one day tells Mark over shared drinks and endless laughter that he sees himself in the way the younger’s eyes shine whenever he talks about writing and creating universes in his head with which to bring joy to everyone else.

It is thanks to Johnny, really, that Mark gets to finally publish his first novel, after three years of submitting drafts to publishing companies and receiving little to no replies in return. It takes a toll on him, static silence leading him to think of his dream as unattainable and his talent as non-existent, but Johnny tells him he’s great and reminds him of the sad truth they both have had to face throughout the course of their lives.

“To succeed as a writer, sadly, it is often not enough to be great at writing, Mark, which you actually fucking _are_ ,” Johnny tells him well past midnight one day, when they’re both stuck in the dimness of Johnny’s studio working together through a sprint, “You need to have a good editor and a strong publishing company backing you up, and I promise you that the day you find one it will all be worth it.”

It’s Johnny who finds it all first, everything compressed into a petite man that goes by Ten and is one of the most important editors in a quite renowned publishing company in Korea. He agrees to read through one of Johnny’s many manuscripts, _“Just the one you think it’s your best so far”_ , and when printing is already in process and Johnny gets delivered the first sample of his brand new _sexy_ crime novel to his apartment, he and Mark both break down crying and drink three bottles of sparkly white wine in celebration, best friends for life tied together by a bond not even time and disgrace will manage to break.

By the time Johnny’s book is published and promotions for it begin, he’s already started dating Ten to the surprise of absolutely no one. _“A match made in Heaven,”_ Mark would joke, and Johnny would simply chuckle and say, _“Heaven’s not as far as you like to believe.”_

And, all along, Eunkyung—Mark’s girlfriend, his fiancée, his future _wife_ —is there for him, from the very first time they set foot together in university to the moment one of Mark’s drafts is finally, _finally_ accepted as a proper first step towards the publication of his novel by Ten himself.

The day it happens is so bittersweet that Mark doesn’t think he will ever forget about the sour aftertaste that lingered on his tongue for a while too long after he walked out of Ten’s office. _“I’m only accepting this because it’s fucking good, Mark,”_ Ten had told him, and although Mark had truly and genuinely been happy to finally get a chance to show his worth to the world, the way it had been Johnny who’d recommended the manuscript to Ten did not go unnoticed by his too self-conscious eyes.

He’d tried to push the thought to the back of his mind, to relish into the relief that was to finally know himself a step closer to reaching his lifelong dream, but Mark’s brain had decided he would not rest until he redeemed himself somehow, set on a quest so irrational yet pressing that he did not even notice the moment things started to go wrong—the first mistake out of all the ones which would lead him to lose control of his own life.

And so Mark did not notice how he’d started to lock himself away and alone inside the tiny room in the flat he shared with Eunkyung for hours on end, not even leaving for lunch or dinner and instead spending his days typing away on files he would always delete at the end of the day, sadness drowning his soul and despair grabbing ahold of his heart and screaming into the cavern of himself, _you’re not good enough, impostor, fake._

He did not realize the way in which Eunkyung would try to bring him comfort in any way she could, sadness chipping away at her soul as she witnessed Mark isolating himself from the world and his own life for the sake of proving to himself that he was good enough, as if it weren’t common knowledge, as if anyone but himself had ever doubted him; did not realize when she stopped doing so, for their relationship wilted like the most delicate flower during the harshest of winters, quickly and inevitably, no remedy in store for a recipe unknowingly slow-cooked by his own hands.

Mark did not realize, really, until the day of the publication of his novel came—the day in which everything, really, truly spiraled out of control into a hurricane that took away every single thing he’d ever thought to have and left his heart dripping black sorrow, no sun to be had after the storm.

_in the morning when you wake up there are dark clouds covering up the stars and you want to believe they don’t carry rain even though they’re dampening your heart._

_that is, sweet child, where all your problems start_

The release of _Mad City_ was an event that could only be labelled as a total success.

The first print of the book, albeit not huge in number but surely in effort, sold out in the first three weeks after publication, and Ten tells Mark that it is one of the best records he’s ever had and Mark forces himself to smile when he gets his picture taken and put up on the publishing company’s social media. The critics are good, he gains followers on Twitter faster than he can bring himself to type out a few grateful tweets, and Eunkyung starts packing her bags silently after spending thirty-seven minutes and eighteen seconds trying to knock down the door to the office Mark’s locked himself into after returning from his meeting with Ten.

“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” Mark had told her as he’d walked inside their apartment, which now felt more of a jail cell than a home with how cold their relationship had grown as a consequence of his creeping obsession with becoming better at writing and the sadness that wrapped itself tight around his throat and bleed out all the energy in his system.

And Eunkyung, caring as always and tired as no one like her should deserve, had simply tilted her head to the side and asked him, “Can do what, love?”

“Anything,” came Mark's broken reply, and the light in his eyes had already been gone for months, but tonight they look like the darkest of pits, no hope in sight, the final fate of a soul too haunted to ever hope to feel happiness again, “Writing, existing, us. I’m so tired, Eunkyung. I’m so tired.”

“Mark, what?” was her confused question, but Mark had simply shaken his head and walked over to his office, piled up papers laying forgotten on the desk and scattered books opened face-down on the ground, no answer he could offer her able to sate her pain.

Right before he does it, Mark realizes he will never forget the look on Eunkyung’s face as he ruins her life yet once again—after having taken her everything, taking her with him away from home and promising her a life he no longer can bear to live, his heart greedy and his soul dead, dreams turned into haunting nightmares and an ache he knows he won’t ever get to sate unless he disappears into himself and waits, as always in vain, for things to change.

“I’m so sorry,” is what he tells her, and Eungkyung’s face breaks into something painful before he manages to lock the door shut with trembling hands, “I’ve loved you, I truly have, but I—I’m not me anymore, I don’t even feel a single thing about _anything_ , and so how could I still do this? I can’t lie to you like that, Eunkyung. I hope you will be able to forgive me one day.”

Eunkyung takes a while until she stops screaming at him, her knuckles almost cracking open as she tries to get Mark to unlock the door by force of her fists alone, and by the time she leaves to pack her things and plan her hurried trip back to Canada, Mark’s already turned off his phone and curled up into a ball on the floor, eyes closed as he hopes for a storm to come and dampen down his endless list of mistakes until the ink is no longer legible, strike down his selfish core and swallow him whole.

That night, it takes Johnny four hours to break into Mark’s flat and kick down the door to the office, when he realizes Mark’s phone has been turned off after he gets a call from Eunkyung telling him it’s all over, that Mark’s has reached bottom ground and she no longer knows how to handle it—that she’s tried and it’s all been fruitless, no longer worth it, a lost cause she no longer knew how to deal with after it killed, quite literally, their every good thing.

When he finally does, he finds Mark fast asleep right where he’d first laid down on the ground, emotional exhaustion blending in with the way he’s gone five consecutive nights without sleep and putting him down quicker than he’d drown in quicksand. “Mark, dude, what the hell is going on—” Johnny asks, panic making his voice crack as Mark blinks up at him tiredly, “Eunkyung is gone, man, just what have you _done—_ ”

“Leave,” Mark says brokenly, tight with effort as if it’s the last thing he will ever allow himself to say, “I just want to be alone. Please leave, leave me forever, I just. Please.”

“I’m not fucking leaving, you’re not okay—”

“That’s why you have to go! Before I fuck up everything even more, I just—I can’t do this, Johnny, I really, really can’t. Please. Please.”

“Don’t make me drag you out of here, c’mon,” Johnny says instead, crouching down next to Mark to place a hand in between his shoulder blades, where his spine is curved into an uncomfortable slouch, “Let’s eat something, you need to calm down.”

And at that gentle touch Mark finally, after weeks of being unable to do so, breaks down crying, and it’s the beginning of something ugly—an awful feeling that blinds him during the day and chokes him at night, that leads him to break his ties to every and anyone who is not Johnny Suh, if only because he simply doesn’t allow him, because he carries the burden of Mark’s sadness as if it were his own to try and fix; as if Mark didn’t already know himself broken beyond repair, as if it hadn’t been his own decisions that have lead him to this point where even his family refuses to deal with him after breaking off his engagement to Eunkyung, as if he still deserved to have Johnny as a friend after dedicating his best efforts to ruining his own whole life.

“I’m not going anywhere, you know,” Johnny had told him one day, after spending three days in Mark’s flat trying to nurse him back into a being with some resemblance to a human, earnest and honest like there are no longer others in Mark’s life, “We’ll get you out of this—I’m going to help you, but you’ve gotta help me, too.”

Today, six months away from the moment when Mark decided to take the next step into his path down self-boicot, Johnny Suh is still there—and it’s a blessing and it’s a curse, but it’s one he doesn’t ever wish to break, and so he listens, always, because songs are healing for the soul, and the ones Johnny sings to him—they speak of hope and second chances, and allowing himself to hearing them is the bravest thing Mark can bring himself to do these days.

Still, demons haunt him; forever will, if he’s to bet,

and so it aches.

_last night you called God and He told you there’s no room in Heaven for people like you—that you’ve ignored divine mandate for the sake of the darkness brewing in your soul, and when you beg for forgiveness He says He’ll be kind and then fucks up the path of your life until you can’t remember where you were in the first place._

_and when they are all gone with your dreams fading away at the pace of their stroll, you’re left alone to wonder if this is what He meant when He said He’d give you a quest_ — _if this loneliness is everything a monster like you deserves._

* * *

“Okay,” Johnny says after a too long while, and Mark can tell it’s by sheer force of will that he’s maintaining his calm after the way Mark’s self-destructive tendencies are evidently still raging on despite it already being a month since he finally accepted to go into therapy, “We’re going out tonight.”

“Uh, no,” Mark laughs into the phone, an ugly sound that twists itself into a scoff he buries into his pillow, “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Oh yes, you _so_ are,” comes Johnny’s retorting chuckle, “You are going to shower and put on some decent clothes, and then we’re going to have some well-deserved fun, alright? Who knows, maybe you’ll find inspiration for your novel like that—you know, seeing the outside world and everything.”

“Gee, thanks for making it sound like I’m some kind of monster,” Mark rolls his eyes, already dreading the second Johnny will walk in through his front door with the resolve of that who knows himself undeniable, “I’m perfectly fine like this, I don’t—”

“You do, so stop whining,” Johnny cuts, and Mark is able to hear the smile on his face as he says, “You’re going to enjoy this place, trust me. It’s… different.”

“I swear to God if you’re taking me to a strip club or something like—”

“I haven’t been to a _strip club_ in my life, dude, what the fuck!” Johnny almost yells, and Mark winces as he pulls the device away from his ear in fear of going deaf, “Don’t be a fucking idiot, c’mon. Be ready at nine, I’ll pick you up.”

“Johnny—”

“Bye, love you! Ten does too!”

Johnny leaves him just like that, with the words dying on his tongue and his phone beeping into his ear, and Mark sighs and thinks, _Damn, I really love him_ , and doesn’t think, _I don’t deserve him, he’s too good to me_ —and it is a step towards an unknown destiny that promises itself brighter than Mark’s present,

and so he waits.

_the gloom of the future chokes me and doesn’t let me breathe; it’s heavy on my chest and heavy on my heart. in the dark of the night, when nobody hears me, i’m alone. life is too much for me; i am too little; there is no hope._

### The boy in the mirror

Johnny finds Mark curled up on the couch but still fresh out of the shower when he lets himself into his apartment with the set of spare keys he’s owned since he first moved to this flat from the place he used to share with Eunkyung—too many memories choking him out back there from a girl who would never want to hear from him again and a life lost to the painful distaste of finding your dream turned into a sour sort of hell—, and Mark wishes he still had in him the strength to look ashamed after getting himself caught so clearly ignoring what little Johnny had asked from him.

“Well, at least you already smell clean,” Johnny teases with a grin as he closes the door behind himself, and months ago a joke like this one with literally no amount of malice behind would have been enough to send him into tears, but today things are still bad but blissfully different. Johnny knows that, and so Mark allows himself to giggle and hide his face in between his bent knees where he’s holding them to his chest, the faint hue of a blush starting to stain the bridge of his nose soft pink. “C’mon, I came early so we still have time to get there before they stop admissions.”

“Where the hell do you wanna take me dude?” Mark chuckles as Johnny starts tugging on his wrist to get him to stand up, “Listen, are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay in and watch a movie or something? I’ll even let you choose.”

“Mmm, no,” Johnny hums, almost pulling Mark along with him as he walks into his room only to scrunch up his nose at how messy it looks, “We’ve already discussed the importance of keeping your living space clean, Mark.”

“Aren’t I supposed to be thinking about a new novel? Well, an artist needs the vibes he needs, you’re not allowed to tell me—”

“Sure, sure, whatever you say,” they both laugh, and it’s not the first time today Mark’s been reminded of how thankful he is about having Johnny in his life, “I’ll pick you something to wear if you don’t want to choose, but we’re going out tonight. No buts, okay? You need it, and it’s going to be nice and fun.”

“You’re not gonna believe me if I feign a sudden flu right now, are you,” Mark sighs, slumping down on the edge of his bed as he watches Johnny open his wardrobe and starting to sort through the line of shirts he hasn’t worn since promotions for _Mad City_ ended, “Can I at least know where you’re taking me?”

“I told you we’re going clubbing,” Johnny hums, picking out a black dress shirt Mark doesn’t even remember owning from the rack, “so I’m obviously taking you to a club. Trust me, you’re going to love it.”

“You know I’m not too fond of clubbing though,” Mark pouts, “I hated that place downtown we went with Ten last time and—”

“This one’s different,” Johnny is quick to say, pushing the shirt into Mark’s chest and raising an eyebrow at him before turning to search for some dark jeans for him to wear, “It’s not your regular club, you know, it’s more of a… high-end place, if you know what I mean? Not everyone is allowed there, so it’s not as… overwhelming as the rest, I guess you could say.”

“And what makes you think we’re going to be allowed? Even if they know my name, I doubt anyone even knows what I look like, dude,” Mark mumbles, taking off the ratty hoodie he’d been wearing in order to button up the shirt. It rests a little looser around his chest than it probably should, most likely from the weight he’s lost ever since he broke out the engagement news to his family and fell face-first into the debacle that is now his everyday, but he tries to convince himself that it is fine—for he would not bear another breakdown if it were to take place right now. “I swear to God I might cry if I have to witness myself being _rejected_ from a place, man, I’m twenty-seven, not seventeen anymore—”

“Would you stop it? Nobody’s going to kick us out dude,” Johnny cuts his rambling off, throwing at him the nicest pair of black jeans Mark owns and starting to rummage through the assortment of jackets he hasn’t worn in way too long, “I’ve already been there, you know. It’s where I met Ten, actually.”

“Wait, what?” Mark squeals, eyebrows furrowing as he catches the pants on the fly, “What do you mean you met Ten clubbing? I thought it was, you know, at the editor’s office?”

“What do you think it means, Mark?” Johnny laughs, but his ears start turning red at the tips and it is enough to set off Mark’s alarms, “That we met at that club. And I might have taken him back home? I mean—man, you know I’m whipped for him alright, and—”

“So,” Mark says, too loud for the acoustic of the space, his tongue feeling heavy in his mouth as he stares across the room to where Johnny is undeniably _blushing_ right now, stupor making his eyes widen almost comically, “you’re telling me you fucked your way into stardom?”

At that, Johnny splutters—whole face going beet red as he drops the leather jacket he’d picked to his socked feet, an indigned scowl twisting his expression as he fails at intimidating Mark with his glare. “Hey, you can’t say that! What if, how do you know it wasn’t Ten that did it, huh?”

“What, _fuck you_?!” Mark screams, horrified to the core, and this time Johnny is the one to almost break down crying right then and there.

“No, you fucking idiot! I—I mean fucking his way into stardom! I’m a great writer!”

It takes a few embarrassing seconds for the first burst of laughter to bubble past Mark’s lips, but once it does, all hell breaks loose. In the time it takes them to finally be able to catch their breath, they both end up with tear-tracks staining their cheeks, and for once they’re product of happiness and not grief—and the realization is so freeing that Mark feels himself somehow growing younger, soothing balm over ugly scars, the comfort Johnny brings him only one of a kind.

“You’re so fucking lucky I love you, man,” Johnny wheezes, bent at the waist as he clutches at his trembling stomach during the last remnants of his laughter fit, the ache seeping into his muscles and leaving them delightfully sore, “or else I would’ve already smashed your head somewhere.”

“I know I am,” Mark grins, running a hand through his hair as he stares at himself in the mirror resting against the wall next to his bed. For the first time in months, he doesn’t look a total mess—even if his face is still tinted red from laughing and his dark brown hair has grown a little towards the longer side—, and he tells himself that it alone should be enough of a motive to celebrate.

“Hey,” Johnny calls out to him a handful of minutes after, while Mark finishes scribbling down almost intelligible sentences on a scrap of paper he hurriedly grabs from atop his bedside table, eyes half-shut in concentration as he hums in acknowledgement, “Have you noticed that water stain on the corner? You should probably tell your landlord about it.”

 _Because painting it over will not work_ , Mark bitterly recalls his afternoon thought.

“Yeah,” he sighs, turning the paper note face-down and tucking the pen away inside the first drawer, always at hand, just in case—weapon against every demon, comfort from the darkest storms, “I probably should.”

Later that night, when life twists itself yet once again around his rocky path, Mark will think back to this same water stain—and its ugliness and its paint, deceiving mask, useless shield.

_the boy in the mirror stares at you with blood caked around the mouth and eyes dead under the moon and he tells you there is no way out of this cave where shadows lurk and eat away at your soul_

_but what if he were lying, what if you could have a choice?_

_yet you try to think of the future brightly but all your mind can come up with is dark and cloudy and roaring with a raging storm_

_the lights are broken and you_

_just_

_don’t know anymore._

### The lights

It’s only because of the obnoxiously loud whirring of his too expensive machine brewing warm, dark caramel-like coffee over the counter of his kitchen island that Donghyuck wakes up.

Opening his eyes alone turns out to be a struggle, with the way sunlight is pouring through the parted black curtains into the wide stance of his bedroom—which is looking less of a mess than he remembers it to have been last night, he for one notices—and reflecting, almost blindingly so, against the white surface of his furniture. Donghyuck groans, already tempted to pull the covers over his head and scratch off the clock a few more hours of sleep, but the whirring of the coffee machine stops and it suddenly reminds him why it was that he’s been jolted awake in the first place.

There is someone in his kitchen—someone making _coffee_ , at that, and it rubs at a sore spot Donghyuck knows he will never be able to calm and makes dread bubble at the bottom of his throat, for he doesn’t know what to expect once he gets out of bed, still so not ready to face the mistakes he keeps repeating every night prior to a morning like this.

By now, Donghyuck thankfully knows the shape of Jeno’s broad back well enough not to be startled when he finds him standing in his kitchen, relief washing over him in waves and allowing him to take in the breathing he hadn’t noticed himself to be holding. “Shit, Jeno, you scared me! You need to stop breaking into my house, one day you’re gonna—”

“What,” Jeno chuckles softly as he empties a sugar sachet into the coffee mug, “catch you in bed with someone? It wouldn’t be the first time it happens.”

Donghyuck squeals, cheeks turning red as he takes the mug Jeno slides to him over the counter and brings it to his face, begging for the delicious smell to both clear the fog in his mind and will away the hungover headache starting to beat right behind his temples and awaiting to hit him full force once he’s awaken enough. “Hey, that’s not—”

“Sungchan was cute, by the way. He gave me his number before he left—around half an hour ago, if you’re curious—, just in case you’d like to, you know. Call him or something.”

Jeno’s smile is just as sad as the rest Donghyuck has had thrown his way by him during the last few months, the curve of his mouth a telltale of all the things he already knows: that Donghyuck will not call Sungchan just like he didn’t call any of the boys that came before him nor the ones who will surely come _after_ him, broken beyond repair and uncaring for any single person in the whole entire world including himself, rotting away beneath Jeno’s helpless stare and disregarding of his every try at helping him heal.

It must be sad how reality is sure to turn bitter, Donghyuck dejectedly thinks as he closes his eyes to take a sip of the perfect coffee Jeno’s prepared for him, when you happen to become your best friend’s manager and a first row witness to the way a good man breaks his heart—kindly yet unforgiving, branding pain across his flesh with the sword once wielded by the unforgettable heroes, songs to be written about, grief to carry through centuries and ashes of burnt paper books.

“Yeah,” Donghyuck sighs, whirling the spoon through the liquid with care not to clink it against the porcelain of the mug, his ears too sensitive still for that kind of noise, “Send me the contact, we’ll see.”

Jeno simply nods, sitting down on one of the stools in this kitchen that costs probably more than Donghyuck knows how to count and resting his chin on the palm of his hand, silently observant as Donghyuck, ascending top model turned irresponsible kid at twenty-six, nurses a drink prepared by his chaperone in a ratty oversized t-shirt belonging to someone who is no longer around and ignores the weight of the world around himself as he hides away in his luxurious penthouse of a home. “Jaemin wants me to remind you that you’re invited over for dinner next Sunday,” he finally says after a while, “Says he’ll prepare anything you want, as long as you pretend not to know he is going to.”

“How sweet, our Jaeminnie,” Donghyuck grins, and Jeno’s gaze is soft as he thinks about his now boyfriend of eight years—Na Jaemin, photographer and the only other friend besides Jeno that Donghyuck has managed to keep despite his unhealthy habits and his souring humour. “I won’t forget—but text me that morning, just in case, you know.”

“Yeah,” Jeno sighs, pulling out his laptop from a bag and opening a tab Donghyuck knows to be his expected schedule for the upcoming days, “I know.”

If it sounds defeated, Donghyuck pays it no mind. Instead, he finishes the coffee, which as always ends up turning bitter at the end, and proceeds to sit down next to Jeno and let him talk to him about all the things Donghyuck must do and no longer feels himself strong enough to deal with.

_You can’t light back a candle without a flame—time keeps ticking you away._

### The shadows

There’s no bad break up—just another _“I’m sorry, Donghyuck-ah”_ , a plane ticket to Beijing, and a suitcase packed with his whole life checked in under a name that isn’t his.

Donghyuck could not say he didn’t deserve it. It’s more that he didn’t expect it, this kind of pain that shapes itself into the form of a guilty goodbye and stays lodged in between the gaps on his ribcage for a lifetime, ready to fossilize and stay right there, melting with his aching bones, until it becomes impossible for him to remember delight without the weight of the past turning everything sour.

Huang Renjun is a good man. Musical actor prodigy at twenty-two, Donghyuck meets him when he’s his same age in a reception hall after yet another successful runway, his own name dripping from foreign lips with the tilt of the voice that gives away just how wanted he’s become.

Renjun’s latest musical, in which he stars as the male lead, had closed its last function the night prior with one more sold-out sign hanging above the theater’s doors, and tonight Donghyuck walks down the last runway of _Seoul Fashion Week_ dressed in impeccably pristine clothes and later heads over to the biggest reception held during the week-long event: that of Saturday night, where personalities from every single entertainment field come to mingle together and get shitfaced under the pretense of celebrating a successful ending of the biggest fashion event of the country.

Barely a year into the industry, and although a first-timer in a celebration like this, Donghyuck already knows better than to expect something from this reception other than hungry stares thrown his way and girls offering to bring the Moon down from the sky just for him, desperate for a night with one of the most promising models of the season and a press exclusive to sell morning come. To it all, Donghyuck claims himself proudly immune, the tender gazes and delicate smiles from the prettiest girls rendered ineffective under the stare of a boy who’s for long known himself to only be attracted to other boys, who rejoices in the way the secrecy of his natures allows him to observe up-close some of the most beautiful men on the country and laments how the consequences of his attitudes made public would surely ruin his skyrocketing career.

Donghyuck, in what some would call narcissism and others simple ignorance, takes pride in the way he thinks to know everything beforehand. And yet, as he tilts his third flute of champagne against his heart-shaped lips tonight, he realizes that there had been one thing that he couldn’t have expected from the party—the way in which Huang Renjun, in a black suit which hugs him in all the right places and a smile worthy of a thousand prizes, walks over to him and places a gentle hand on the small of his back, as if he’d know Donghyuck ready to fall upon approach, only to pull it away a second later when he comes to stand in front of him.

“Hello,” Renjun greets him gently, not a trace of nervousness in his firm voice as he locks eyes with Donghyuck, “I’m Huang Renjun. I saw you during the last stage of the show, and I hope you’ll allow me to say that _haute couture_ does look incredible on you.”

And Donghyuck, as if hit by a never-ending wave of embarrassment and joy at the praise, feels his cheeks heating up and turning so pink the flush is observable through the thick layer of foundation carefully applied over his face. “Thank you,” he manages to say, unable to stop his eyes from looking away from Renjun’s and coming to a stop on the gentle slope of his lips, moist and teasing, the most realistic of mirages across the desert, “I’m Lee Donghyuck. It’s nice to meet you.”

“I know who you are,” Renjun laughs softly, and the sound reminds Donghyuck of easier times, at the back of a bar in Itaewon when his name was a secret he’d still been allowed to keep, “You featured in Vogue last month. I’m sure you must be proud! It hasn’t been long since you started, right?”

“It’ll be a year next month,” Donghyuck nods, and his smile mirrors Renjun’s knowing one in a gesture that speaks more than all the words they would never be allowed to say out loud, “And I know who you are too, you see. I went to see your musical a few weeks ago.”

“Ah, that’s sort of embarrassing,” Renjun giggles, and Donghyuck shakes his head as he returns the sound, “I hope you enjoyed it enough to allow me to buy you a drink right now.”

“You can’t buy me a drink here, Renjun. Everything’s already been paid for,” Donghyuck snorts, but his heart beats with a sweet kind of newfound excitement he’d long believed to be gone.

At that, Renjun simply tilts his head to the side, eyebrow raised in a captivating gesture as he tells Donghyuck, “Who said anything about staying here? I know a place nearby you’d surely love. Think about it, alright?”

But Donghyuck hadn’t needed to think—not when he followed Renjun out of the main hall with the mischief proper of kids who were allowed to live their own life at their age, nor when they’d gotten themselves drunk enough for words to slur and their lips to seek each other’s like a hungry wolf during a full moon, the darkness of a half-empty bar hiding from view the way they both ached for more and were, back then, strong enough to pursue, hand in hand as if they were invincible, as if they thought of themselves gods with the right to be above right and wrong.

The four years that follow that one fateful night allow Donghyuck to feel like he’s walking across the silky golden clouds of Heaven while still anchored on Earth.

With the very public efforts and supports of his agency and the blissfully private ones he gets from Huang Renjun, the man he’s learnt to love with every single piece of his still innocent enough heart, Donghyuck becomes one of the most codiciated top models in the country in a climb which slope mirrors Renjun’s own in the musical industry.

Dating Renjun, albeit kept a secret from the outside world, teaches Donghyuck that there’s always a chance at finding yourself even when you’re lost amidst a sea of hungry sharks. Renjun is soft and gentle, takes Donghyuck’s worries and heals them back to happiness with his own bare hands until he becomes himself again, until he’s forgotten about the comments he’s read about himself on some Twitter account and about how unfair it is they don’t get to hold hands in the street, and Donghyuck makes home out of the comfort of Renjun’s arms and nests himself there for a lifetime, unwilling to fly away, decided to stay by his side no matter what it takes.

And so Renjun allows it—keeps Donghyuck’s heart safe and untainted as he makes him his with every single breath they share, and in return Donghyuck heals Renjun’s very own wounds with his soft lips and kisses away the creases on his forehead after a role lost or a high note missed during rehearsals at work.

And Donghyuck, he clings to Renjun like a lifeline and swears there will never be anyone but him, and for him they work together smoothly like clockwork—achingly in love during the minutes while Donghyuck remains devastatingly ignorant during the seconds, unseeing of the way Renjun’s smile becomes more forced and of the way the butterflies inside his stomach die as the flame of their love trembles before shutting down, a candle melted until only the wick is left, raw and burnt down to nothing but memories; enough for the walls of Donghyuck’s fantasy world to start crumbling around the edges while he’s kept too hypnotized by the passing hours to notice, until the call happens and changes everything he’d ever thought to know about their lives.

Renjun gets offered the main role in one of China’s most important musicals five months before Donghyuck turns twenty-six and two weeks before this year’s Seoul Fashion Week, and desperate as a thief being caught redhanded with his hands on the grand prize, Donghyuck refuses to accept that he might not turn out to be Renjun’s choice this time around.

“I’ll go with you,” comes Donghyuck hopeless resolve when Renjun tells him he’s leaving, tears welling in his eyes as the shattered pieces of his heart cut through his flesh and bleed him out alive, “Anything, Renjun, I’ll search for anything, just please don’t leave me here alone, please—”

“I can’t let you do that, Hyuck,” Renjun mumbles, and the look on his face is hurt with the way a soul dies when it’s forced to hurt that for whom you’ve cared the most, “I can’t let you ruin your life for mine. I know you can understand that.”

“Is this—am I really that insufferable, do you not love me anymore?” Donghyuck wails, but Renjun’s arms are a steel solid cage around his trembling frame as he stops him from slipping away yet once again.

“Don’t you see, baby, that that’s not what this is at all?” Renjun frowns, his thumbs wiping away Donghyuck’s tears one last time as his lips find home on the valley of his forehead, leaving there a kiss that’s meant to last forever imprinted on his skin, “I love you so much, Donghyuck, so much, but this is not good anymore. It’s breaking you—you deserve your wings, and so do I. We need to find our own paths, even if they’re not the same one.”

“So you’re leaving me cause you think you will find someone better,” is Donghyuck’s bitter conclusion, even as Renjun’s eyes meet his own and tell him he’s getting it all wrong, “Nothing of what we’ve done together matters, then, does it?”

“Of course it matters,” Renjun sighs, but defeat is already signed on a treaty too heavy to hide away, “But we’re breaking each other, Hyuck, thinking we are all we can ever wish to have. I hope one day you’ll get to see it—I hope you’ll manage to understand how precious you are, without me there to tell you all the time.”

And Renjun is a good man—Donghyuck knows this, would die with the words on his tongue if it were necessary for him to do so, but the moment Renjun walks out the door of Donghyuck’s rented penthouse they’d for so long wanted to call their own he wishes to hate him, turn him into the villain he so desperately wants him to be instead of this defeated hero who thinks he’s got the right to decide over Donghyuck’s life.

All he gets, instead, is a message three days later; a simple _“I’m sorry, Donghyuck, I hope you’ll find yourself again soon”_ , and after that, static silence that drives him crazy and ends up making him feel more lost than he was at the very start—seeking comfort in the arms of men who do not care about his name but only about his pretty face, and drinking away all the problems he’d once blindly tried to bury under the layers of Renjun’s care and that now come afloat once he’s gone like the remnants of a shipwrecked boat: rotten and ugly, reminders of how every single thing Renjun had claimed to be false has turned out to be true in the end—for Donghyuck is unlovable, impossible to keep past the frenzy of a good fuck and few good years, a toy even the most simple of beings would grow tired of.

And Donghyuck, damned survivor of said shipwreck, is left alive to mourn—keeps going on autopilot as the aura around his body wilts, still beautiful, undeniably torn.

_there’s something to be said about boys like you: soft and gentle and yet so damaged you love to think yourself a man: made out of hard flesh and sinew and bone and so, so strong no one would be able to take from you, steel armor against the greed of the soul._

### For a night

The lights of the club are low and dim as Donghyuck has learnt to love them to be when he walks in that Friday night.

The back door through which he’s been let in is discreet enough for no one, press or simple passerby, to know the kind of place it leads into. The building in which the club itself is built gives nothing away about the nature of the activities that take place within its walls, simple enough for it to pass as yet another low-budget establishment to which no one would pay any piece of mind.

Inside, though, the atmosphere you can breathe in already tells of how different from any regular place this one is—adrenaline blending in with alcohol and fun at being surrounded by people similar to you, silently struggling behind flawless façades and too keen on activities no celebrity of any kind should be found taking partake in, always ready to pretend perfection is real for the sake of one good night.

It’s no wonder, really, that Donghyuck’s gotten himself addicted to this place, where he can let go of the little sense of responsibility he still has left inside his brain after letting it rot from pain and sadness, and instead dance and drink away every single one of his worries, the music and the gin gentle antidote for a broken heart and a decadent self; where he can kiss one or two or maybe even three of the beautiful boys that manage to get in past the guards on the doors with their pretty faces and their too full wallets, as if broken bones could be fixed with tape and an awful song. Donghyuck will always take one of them back home and, under the effects of alcohol and desperation and the ache that comes from knowing yourself unworthy of a single touch, he will let them use his body just like he uses theirs, until completion washes over him and leaves him feeling filthy and bitter and a little emptier than he’d already been at the start.

His modus operandi never changes—he’s already out of the closet for the people who frequent this place, anyways, with how obvious it is what he comes looking for every night, and there’s confidentiality contracts to be signed before entrance and enough beautiful people for everyone to get lost into for anyone to pay attention to who or what he does—, and so Donghyuck walks himself over to the bar alone as he always comes, places an elbow down on the black marble and a delicate palm up to support his head, orders himself a gin-and-tonic, _double, please_ , and waits.

Donghyuck is barely halfway through his first drink of the night, led lights shining a full rainbow of colors across his silver hair, when a guy around his age leans across the bar right next to him to ask the bartender for a rum-and coke. His hands are closed into fists, a telltale of the way nerves are probably licking fire up the column of his back, for Donghyuck would have remembered him if he’d seen him in this place before. The boy’s hair is dark and longish around sharp cheekbones and starry eyes and pretty lips, and Donghyuck—he’s enchanted.

Little does he know, the spell is one that’ll leave him bound for ages to come.

“Hey,” he calls out to the beautiful stranger, his tongue loose around the syllables with the easiness that can only come from endless practice at shameless flirting in the dark, “What’s a pretty boy like you doing here all alone?”

Donghyuck is not blind to the way the boy’s back goes taut with tension, as if he’d been electrocuted alive by the mere sound of his melodic voice—like he wasn’t expecting it, like Donghyuck is not a boy but a siren awaiting to drag sailors away from shore, to have them drown under the palm of his desire and his broken soul until there is nothing they can know except the name of a man so empty he’s sure he can no longer be allowed the privilege of humanity.

The boy’s adam apple bobs as he swallows, and Donghyuck cocks a hip against the bar as he watches him wrap a hand around the glass he’s handed by the waiter before looking straight into an empty point in the void. “I could ask you the same thing,” he returns Donghyuck’s question, then, and it leaves him a little bit shocked at the way he’s mustered the courage to tease him back when it’s so evident Donghyuck makes him _shake_.

And it’s another step forward towards his very own victory, the knowledge that this beautiful man has, at least, spared a look at him and _liked_ what he’s seen—a step closer to his goal of having the world worship him in his decadence while he slips away under the fist of a lonely life and the weight of knowing himself unlovable, deceiving on the eyes but never on the heart—, and so Donghyuck smiles like he’s both an unattainable god and the most moldable boy on Earth and rests his chin on his hand, interested beyond a doubt in this stranger who’s allowing him to play his strings while remaining put together in a way not everyone can claim to have been before.

“Mhm, I’d say you couldn’t without me puking on your shoes and walking away from the cringe,” Donghyuck hums teasingly, and it draws out a chuckle from the man, “but you’re cute, so I’ll allow it. My name’s Lee Donghyuck. I’m a model.”

“Woah, a model?” Deep brown eyes draw a wide circle around a whole galaxy of stars, and even in the dimness of this far corner of the bar, Donghyuck knows to recognise an unpolished diamond when he sees one; willing to fall down his trap, another fool to deceive. “Du—I mean, that’s fucking cool! And like, it suits you too, you know, cause, yeah. I, uh—I’m Mark Lee. I’m a writer. Like, you know, I write, I guess. It’s nice to meet you?”

The way Mark stumbles over his words leaves Donghyuck dumbfounded, and normally he would roll his eyes and let this boy walk away in exchange for someone who will not think so greatly of him at first sight, talking with pure honesty in his eyes to someone like Donghyuck, rotten and ugly and with secrets rusting against the walls of his very own heart, stuck inside like bullets, tearing through flesh with insurmountable pain.

Normally, Donghyuck would walk away and never think of Mark Lee’s face, stunning or not, again; but on this one day, under the promise of a boy unknowing of his every flaw and willing to listen without falling down on his knees first, Donghyuck laughs, and the sound sets him free.

“For a writer you sure are awfully bad with words,” Donghyuck giggles, and Mark’s mouth opens and then closes like he’s both incapable of thinking of a single thing to say and slowly understanding the nature of their interaction, for his cheeks heat up as he looks away from Donghyuck once again. And he’s stupidly charming, Donghyuck hums to himself, an aura to him different from the one boys like him usually carry, and so he lets himself relax and adds, “You’re lucky your eyes already give away everything there is to say.”

It is a truth too big for this dark place to hold, yet another way of telling what Donghyuck’s been able to see from the very first second their eyes met—that he doesn’t belong in the dark corner of this club where they’ve wandered but somewhere safer, surrounded by warmer tones and gentle souls to guard the stars he seems to hide behind a gaze so open it seems to want to swallow him alive.

“I’m, yeah, I guess,” Mark awkwardly chuckles, left hand coming up to scratch at the back of his head while the right raises the glass to his lips. Fingertips get caught amidst rebel strands as liquid slides down his throat, and Donghyuck allows himself to admire the way he swallows, open in his desire before Mark speaks again. “Hey, I hope this doesn’t sound strange or anything but, like, what in hell is this place?”

Donghyuck blinks once, startled, and for the first time in so long he finds himself at a loss of words. “Uh, what?”

“I mean,” Mark laughs, “I came here with a friend and, like, getting in was kind of weird, you know? They made us sign sort of confidentiality contracts and all, and—”

“Mark Lee,” Donghyuck draws his eyebrows together in a frown, heart rate spiking up at the way this situation is one he doesn’t know—because people come here knowing what they want to have and what they want to hide and who they all are, _so why is this boy standing here asking me what is this all_ , “Are you—Do you not know who I am?”

“What?” Mark frowns back, lips curving down as he looks straight at Donghyuck’s eyes and says, clear and open like a spring day, “Why would I? I mean, you said you were a model but, _woah, maybe you’re famous_ —Man, I don’t really keep up with the outside world too much these days, you see, and—”

Donghyuck holds his breath, the blood in his veins singing the song about how easy it is to deceive those who don’t know—make them believe you’re worth it, allowing them in just before you close in again—, and his eyebrows furrow when he asks, “Just who are you?”

“Oh,” It’s Mark’s turn to turn quiet, a scowl setting on his handsome face and making him look sadder under the led lights of the club, and for some reason he would not be able to name, Donghyuck’s heart aches at the sorrow that emanates from his pores. “Yeah, of course. I guess you’re used to it, but it’s not like anyone’s going to remember a writer’s face, right? I don’t need to be beautiful, unlike you—”

“Hey,” Donghyuck cuts through his speech, sharp like a blade, a snake ready to bite away at its prey, “What, you think I’m just another shallow pretty boy you can play, don’t you? Is that why you came here tonight, huh?”

“What the hell,” Mark startles, taking a step backwards that only serves to leave his back pressed to the wall, until this very moment unaware of the way they’ve moved themselves over to a quieter part of the wide room, away from curious eyes and greedy hands, “I never said that! Isn’t it obvious that models are supposed to be beautiful? Like, c’mon, you can’t tell me you don’t think you _are_ , so—”

“So what, huh?” Donghyuck hisses, and it’s not his voice speaking but that of the demon that’s settled home inside his ribcage and aches to scratch his way outside by sheer power of rage, mean and ugly and willing to tear down everything in its way just to leave him buried under a mountain of self-hatred and disgust, “I bet you think I’m perfect, that I have it easy just because you think I’m a fucking pretty face, but that doesn’t mean everyone thinks so nor that it’s _true_. Maybe I’m not so beautiful, maybe there’s something more to me than my body—maybe I’m _ugly_ , Mark Lee. That, you cannot know.”

Silence falls heavy over them amidst the chaos of music and laughter reverberating across the walls surrounding them, and it’s then that Donghyuck realizes his hand has come to rest closed in a fist over Mark’s chest—a frustration he doesn’t know how to express when thrown at his face like this, when expectations are held above his head by someone who’s still barely learnt the sound of his name.

And Mark Lee—he should push Donghyuck away and escape while he still can, run away from the claws of a boy ready to eat alive every single good thing thrown his way if only because it could never love him, loneliness one big cloud hiding away the Sun.

But Mark Lee—he simply reaches over to place a hand over Donghyuck’s closed fist, as if skin could serve as armor, as if eyes as beautiful as his could ever fix a single thing, and he tells him, gentle like Donghyuck knows he doesn’t deserve, “Maybe it’s the same for me, too. That, you cannot know.”

And Donghyuck knows to recognize a cliff when he sees one, tall and aching for his fall, but tonight he takes a step back and doesn’t; turns his face away from the man who thinks of him as some sort of treasure instead of a curse and feels his pulse throbbing under the pad of Mark’s thumb where it rests over his wrist.

“Your drink’s gone all watery, you know,” Mark says before Donghyuck has time to think of an excuse to run away from someone orbitating too close to home, stray memories of a boy who once too tried to see past his every wall and ended up tearing them all down when he left him behind, “Let me buy you another one before my friend starts worrying and comes looking for me, c’mon. Peace?”

 _Peace_ , as if war wasn’t still raging inside Donghyuck’s chest, as if he was allowed kindness despite the putridness of his soul. _Peace_ , as if Mark thinks Donghyuck is still worthy of gentleness—like he wants to become his friend, like he doesn’t know Donghyuck would love to have his hands wrapped around his neck until he’s squeezed every single thought from his brain.

“Peace,” Donghyuck answers against the rabid screaming of his mind, sharp pieces of a broken heart beating back into life if only for tonight, “Because you’re cute, Mark Lee.”

_a boy is not a soldier, a boy is not a soldier but he’s fighting — fighting in a war that isn’t his, won’t somebody save him? he’s drowning, he’s drowning and his hand slipped loose through my fingertips — and he claims he’ll live but you need to take him away from those eyes of his — he’s drowning, he’s drowning, do not let him leave._

### Hell is a cold place

Mark wakes up on Saturday morning with a pounding headache throbbing behind his eyebrows and his heart heavy where it beats shallowly against his ribcage.

Though alcohol consumption does not serve as an excuse this time—for all he had was barely half a rum mix that was enough to leave him feeling a bit dizzy and managed to set his tongue loose—, memories from the night prior take a while to come back to his head, allowing him to relish in the few last seconds of calm he will be allowed in which will most likely turn out to be quite a long time.

When they finally do, though, it’s like the gates safeguarding the last strands of his sanity are kicked open to let in a high-pressure current of thoughts that almost leave him breathless, eyes wide as he tries to gasp in what little air the anxious pressure around his lungs allows. Under the blinding sunlight of this lazy, almost aching morning, the only thing Mark Lee can see in every second of darkness allowed by the blinking of his eyes is the alluring curve of a one Lee Donghyuck’s smile.

The images that rush through his brain so fast they almost leave him sick with motion are innocent in nature, bad jokes and earnest talk about the publication of _Mad City_ and Donghyuck’s features in different magazines that carry no weight but that of a good chat and a well-deserved laugh. Mark recalls the way he felt himself light for the first time in years, how easy it was to tell Donghyuck about Johnny’s endless patience with his antics during the writing process and listen to him talk about rubbing his manager’s kindred thin with mischievous stunts, and it’s both soothing for his pained soul and nerve-wrecking for his overloaded brain, yet another worry to add to his mess, ink to pour over ripped pages.

Because last night was a break of sorts from the decaying spiral of his life, and for that Mark is grateful that Johnny forced him to get out and talk to someone other than him or Ten, experiencing society again and regaining touch with the unexpected turns that come with the adventure that is to be human in a world outside that of the sadness of your home. But Mark has always known to recognize a threat when he sees one, whether it be hiding under creeping shadows or behind gentle smiles, and to have been faced by sin itself so directly and without a strong enough shield to protect himself, leaves him feeling bare under the untold promise of more.

There is something to be said about boys like Lee Donghyuck, delicate and beautiful in appearance yet always dangerous behind their pretty façade; awaiting for a moment of weakness to break through your flesh and eat away at your heart, making you wonder if you’ve ever known yourself beyond the way it feels to come undone under the touch of their hands.

And Mark—he knows to tell desire apart from friendship start, because if Donghyuck thinks his eyes are crystal clear then Mark believes Donghyuck’s face gives away both the latent ache of conquest underlying his laughter and the pain tearing at his heart for a reason known by nobody but himself.

And he knows better than to give into his alluring call, because there is a special place in Hell reserved for those that stray away from fated path to fall down the abyss of earthly pleasure under the hands of another man, but there had been something in the way Donghyuck drank in everything that went unsaid in the gaps between Mark’s words that leaves him wondering if it would be worth it, perhaps, to taste the thing he’s always thought of forbidden for someone quite like himself—if it would be worth it, maybe, to indulge into temptation one single time, meet the touch of a boy’s arms like there’s not a whole world of sharks awaiting to be left out of the tank.

After all, there’s not much more evil left for him to do in this world, after putting his best efforts to destroying his own life wreaking havoc among that of his loved ones in the process.

There is something to be said about boys like Lee Donghyuck, but so there is about boys like himself, broken beyond repair yet still reticent to acknowledge the fact that holy perfection is a right they gave up too long ago to reclaim.

Mark knows, and despite the fog clouding his brain and the way it hurts to open his eyes after falling asleep with his contact lenses on after a long while, he reaches over for the notebook stacked into his bedside table and writes.

_wouldn’t it be sweet to relent—give him everything, sate his ache, some things humans like you don’t deserve,_

_and yet._

### The road we take

“Are you doing anything tonight?” Johnny asks through the phone in a chirpy tone, “Besides moping on the couch, that is?”

It’s enough to make Mark’s blood run cold.

“What could I possibly be doing?” He asks, strained as it comes, “I might try to get something written or, maybe sleep. Yeah.”

Not for the first time, Mark is thankful that Johnny cannot see his face when he replies, phone held between his shoulder and his cheek while he finishes tying the laces on his shoes. The lie feels smooth on his tongue, the very evidence of how used to it he’s gotten by now—hiding reality from sight if only for the sake of his loved ones.

“How exciting,” Johnny mocks him, blissfully unaware of the way Mark’s heart wants to come crawling out of his throat with the force of its beating.

“Monday nights tend to be,” Mark retailates, and his throat feels tight as he looks at his reflection on the mirror and takes in the way his dark jeans and black tee hang from all the sharp edges on his body, “You got plans or what?”

“Ten wants to watch a movie.”

Mark is careful not to make much rustling noises while he picks a bomber jacket from his closet, bottom lip held tight between sharp teeth. He feels like some sort of delinquent in his own home, and the sensation is definitely not a pleasing one. “How exciting,” he repeats into the mic, and it leaves the both of them chuckling, “Hey, dude, I gotta go. Pizza’s gonna get burnt.”

“Sure, sure,” Johnny hums, “Goodnight Markie, tell me if you wanna sprint together tomorrow, alright?”

“I’ll try,” Mark sighs, making a mental note not to forget either his wallet nor his keys, “Goodnight hyung. Love you.”

“Love you too!”

The room falls eerily silent when Mark comes to stand quiet in the middle of it. With the fingers of his right hand wrapped tight around his phone, his palms grow clammy when he opens once again the conversation thread in his texting app he doesn’t even know how he dared to start.

 **hchnlee:** _See you there! I hope you’ll at least accompany me with the drinks this time~_

Lee Donghyuck’s text reads like a promise and a threat Mark is not sure to be ready to face, but in the end, it was Mark’s very idea to ask him to meet at the club tonight.

He doesn’t tell anyone—namely Johnny, the only person who would ask—that he’s going if only because he wouldn’t know how to explain the way there’s a voice in the back of his head telling him he needs to meet Donghyuck again. It is as if fate itself had decided that there was something unsolved in between them, as if the caramel dripping from Donghyuck’s lips every time he spoke to him that night was the spark to the flame Mark has been missing all his life—another opportunity, a chance he would’ve never dreamed of taking if despair hadn’t grabbed ahold of his mind and told him he’s no longer got a single thing to lose.

Because Eunkyung is long gone, his writing streak dead alongside every single other dream he’s ever owned, and the boy with the silver hair and the taunting smile—he’s a forbidden apple he’d love to taste, if only to try and see if he’s still capable of feeling, if damnation could still ruin a soul that’s already been killed.

When he looks at himself in the mirror yet once again before finally exiting his apartment, Mark tries to recall the last time he felt a rush of excitement quite like this one running through his bloodstream. In the end, he finds himself unable to remember, and so he closes his front door silently and hopes with all his force for things to go right for once.

_the road to hell starts and ends with the look on his face when he tells you he knows there’s something else you’d like to tell—but that, too, you knew, because you’ve seen his eyes and they, this you have been told, have never lied._

### Bring me a tempest

Finding Donghyuck inside the club is surprisingly easy given how exhausting getting past the guard on the door had been.

In the end, Mark is lucky he’d remembered to bring up his previous Saturday night adventure with Johnny, and he’s silently thankful that his debut novel turned out to be such a hit, for the eyes of the man when he’d first walked up to him had been hard steel and his mouth had already been harbouring the words that would prevent him from entering so. Still, when he finally sets foot on the polished black tiles reflecting the purple lights lining up the walls, Mark would dare to say that he feels powerful—blissfully unimportant among the few people who are here on a Monday night, with no responsibilities hanging over his head and no one to give explanations to but himself and the boy he’s come to see.

In the distance, Donghyuck looks majestic where he’s propped up against a stool by the bar while he busies himself with his phone, the lights casting obscure shadows over his angles and making his hair look pitch black for a second and blinding white the next. Mark starts feeling enchanted by his aura even before he dares to walk over to him on unsteady feet, sudden regret crawling up his throat and asking him how he could have thought facing someone as divine as Donghyuck would be easy, when he’s nothing but stumbled words and awkward laughs. But then, Donghyuck’s face lights up for a second when he catches sight of Mark, and even though that glow is gone as fast as it’d come, it’s enough to ease off Mark’s nerves and tell him there might be something more than he’d first thought to the look in the boy’s deep brown eyes.

“Took you long enough,” Donghyuck hums as a greeting once Mark is close enough, eyebrow raised as he takes a long look at him before his lips curl into an alluring smirk, “I thought you’d thought better and wouldn’t show up.”

“Does that happen to you a lot?” Mark snorts, unbeliever of the mere thought, and the laugh it draws out of Donghyuck’s chest is enough of a reward for the effort it’s taking him to do this. “You look good, by the way. Those braids are cute.”

“You think so?” Donghyuck’s grin doesn’t lose its dangerous edge as he lifts a finger to his temple just so he can curl one of the few thin, little braids framing his face around the digit, “Thank you, Mark Lee. They’re from today’s photoshoot.”

“Oh,” Mark nods at the indirect reminder of all the differences between their realities, at the taste of exquisiteness that surrounds Donghyuck in contrast to the crippling darkness that crawls around his own existence and threatens to drown him in his sleep, “How was it?”

“Are you really going to ask me about it?” Donghyuck groans, but Mark sees how he doesn’t lose the sweetness he’s learnt to associate to his every teasing word, “I’m gonna need a drink if you’re gonna have me talking about work, honestly. Are you gonna have one with me today or is it yet another sober night for you?”

Mark laughs again, his eyes small as he stares at the way Donghyuck already has an elbow on the bar ready to order himself the first one of the night. “I might have a full one, maybe even two tonight. We’ll see.”

“Ohh, sounds risky,” Donghyuck returns the sound with a gentle shake of his head, “First one’s on me, then. You can treat me to another later.”

Mark nods and then watches Donghyuck speak to the bartender with the familiarity that comes from having frequented a place for far too long, and once he’s finally got the clammy palm of his hand gathering the condensation dripping from a highball glass, they walk together towards a table in the far back on which they can rest to talk.

And it’s eerie, Mark thinks to himself as he watches Donghyuck wrap his heart-shaped lips around the neon pink straw sticking out of his drink, how easy it feels to stand next to this boy who orbits in a galaxy far away from his own, the way in which Donghyuck’s eyes shine with millions of untold stories as he listens to Mark talk about his day as if he could _care_ , as if there wasn’t a whole world of luxury awaiting from him lightyears from the mediocrity Mark’s learnt to associate himself with.

But Lee Donghyuck does not seem to notice—he just drinks and smiles and tells Mark about his afternoon photoshoot and the way he loves it when the DJ plays this song, his voice sweet as syrup and the beauty of his face alluring like a golden treasure in a hidden cave; and the spell he’s so gently weaving around Mark doesn’t take long to make its effect, for soon he starts finding it impossible to stop himself from gravitating closer towards him in the booth they’re both sitting in, wave aching to meet shore with the rising force of the tide.

“Why didn’t you come with that friend of yours again tonight, hm?” Donghyuck then asks, once they’ve both emptied their glasses and Mark has returned from the bar with another round for themselves, and it sounds more dangerous than it sounds fun, “Was he busy?”

Mark’s heart skips a beat inside his ribcage, his blood running cold for a second as he thinks about what to tell, for the truth would be too open for him to share and then leave there for Donghyuck to chew through it and get to the deepest parts of his chest. “Yeah. Yes, he was.”

There’s a reason why he hasn’t told Johnny he’s here tonight, but it’s not one Mark thinks he can just say out loud like it doesn’t mean much more than it seems. He couldn’t tell Johnny if only because he would have asked, would have known that there must have been something pulling at the worn-down strings of Mark’s heart to make him want to go to a bar on his own after months refusing to leave home. And if Johnny had asked, he would have found out about the secret brewing underneath the flesh and muscle walls guarding Mark’s core, would have been able to see with his very own eyes how badly Mark wants what he shouldn’t be allowed to have—to taste a boy despite how he’s forever claimed not to like those of his same sex, to feel delight under the hands of a person he’s not yet had the opportunity to ruin unlike all of those he’s already left behind by the sheer force of his greed.

And if Johnny had asked and Mark had told, he would have been nothing but supportive, ever so willingly blind to the way there’s a monster habitating in every crevice of Mark’s bones and in the shallow space inside his lungs. This Mark knows, yet he feels himself still unable to speak up on all the things he’s kept for himself for way too long, and so he leaves silently as he always tends to do, and hopes for the morning sun to erase every trace of his steps when he comes back home.

“I see,” Donghyuck hums, and Mark feels himself seen through by the melted honey in his eyes, quick and sharp where Mark’s terribly scared of letting down his guard, “Did you tell him you were coming?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Mark is quick to retort, anguish crawling up the column of his throat and threatening to make him choke.

Donghyuck just shrugs, taking a long sip from his drink with his eyes still fixed on Mark’s before he hums, innocent like an angel would while laying on a fluffy cloud, “I don’t know. Something tells me you’re a bit reluctant to let him know you’re here with me.”

“What does?” Mark chuckles, bringing his glass up to his lips in a futile attempt at hiding the hysterical edge starting to cut through his words.

“I said I don’t know, Mark,” Donghyuck giggles, the art of messing with his calm once he’s learnt way too fast, “Maybe you’re planning on cheating on him. You could be dating and I wouldn’t know.”

“ _What_?” Mark squeals, worry seeping away from his brain and being substituted by pure and utter confusion, “Dude, Johnny’s like my brother, like—I would _never_ date him. Ever! And he’s dating my editor too, which, you know, just. No. _God_.”

Donghyuck laughs again, thoroughly amused by the flush that’s starting to tint the apples of Mark’s cheeks, and his eyes close into slits when he brings a hand to support his jaw before he keeps shooting bullets to the weak face of Mark’s clumsily-built shield. “So then you’re single?”

The question is both innocent and not. This, Mark sees in the way Donghyuck’s gaze lingers on his lips while he waits for him to start talking, in the way his smile has been telling him all night he probably knows more than he’s letting on, Mark’s façade so transparent it would be impossible for him to fool someone like him, untouchable and delicate and living a lifetime worth of dreams with every kick of his heartbeat.

Still, he chooses to reply with honesty—for vulnerability might be a privilege he won’t be granted more than once with a boy who sleeps touching the stars, and the weight of truth tends to be, as he’s come to learn, quite life-changing in the most peculiar of ways. “I am,” he concedes, defeat worn on his chest like a badge, “I broke up with my girlfriend of ten years six months ago.”

Surprise paints a pretty picture on Lee Donghyuck’s face. It makes his eyes go a little wide and pushes his lips to open around the o-shape of a plush pout, the rosy tint of his cheeks turning his vibe into something querubic Mark hates himself for aching to taint. “Oh,” he says softly, gentleness where Mark expected less from a man who’s probably never been faced with rejection in his whole life, “I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s fine,” Mark shrugs, gaze falling to the rim of his glass before he raises it up to take another nervous sip, “We were going to get married one day, she was actually my fiancée. But, like, yeah, you know, it cooled down and then died and—I’m getting over it.”

“I see,” Donghyuck hums, and his eyes are soft when they meet Mark’s over the edge of his own cocktail, drowning in something he doesn’t yet know how to name, “Maybe we should talk about something else, then. I didn’t mean to make this awkward.”

“It’s not awkward,” Mark laughs, shaking his head at the same time he takes a deep breath, “Shit happens, it’s all fine. I’m good right now.”

_How easy it is to lie—_

“So you’re straight, then?”

_—when you know just how much is true._

“Huh?” Mark startles, almost choking on his drink when Donghyuck speaks up so casually, eyes narrowed as he stares across the table into the very core of Mark’s soul, “What?”

“I asked if you’re straight,” Donghyuck smirks, using his pink stray to twirl around the ice cubes in his mix and make them clink against glass, “Yes or no?”

“I—” And this is something he’d been expecting and at the same time the one thing he never thought to say, anguish grabbing at his heartbeat and telling him there’s no way out of this cave once he gives into it— “Probably? I’m—maybe not sure.”

“ _Maybe not sure_ ,” Donghyuck giggles in amusement, and for a second Mark sees himself not in a club but at the gates of Heaven being denied entry by the same hands that grip at his chest and drag him away into temptation, heart-shaped lips staining sin on his skin, “Only those who don’t know can allowed the privilege of doubt, Mark Lee. And I think we both know that you _know_ very clearly what you like. You can’t lie to me.”

Mark’s spine goes rigid with a current of electricity coming from an unknown source, and he thinks it’s divine warning and he thinks it’s damnation calling and welcoming him home with wide open arms. His eyes tremble as he searches for an answer he won’t find in every corner of the dimly lit room, and before he has time to notice, Lee Donghyuck’s got his hands wrapped around his wrists and his eyes set on his heart like a hungry wolf awaiting to sink his teeth into tender flesh to feed.

“What do you want,” is what Mark manages to croak out, the atmosphere switching into something thicker that wraps itself around his lungs and intoxicates his every breath, pulse kicking up under the gentle pads of Donghyuck’s fingers.

“What do I want?” Donghyuck chuckles, as if the mere thought of Mark daring to refuse him was enough to make him laugh, “The same thing _you_ want, Mark. I want you to fuck me.”

“ _God_ ,” Mark shrieks, eyes anxious as they look around to see if there’d been someone who could hear, “How can you just say that? You’re famous overseas, I—”

“So? Is that what matters?” Donghyuck says sharply, standing up to make his way to the other side of the booth until he can squeeze his way next to Mark, leaving him pressed in between his body and the hard wall, “I just wanna have fun with you, is it really so bad?”

“Bad?” Mark stutters, escape an impossible quest when he’s got Donghyuck’s breath waiting to claim home over his mouth—and does he want him, unwillingly so, aches to feel his touch until there’s nothing he can remember but the bliss it’s sure to bring along, “No, it’s just—we can’t—”

“We can do anything we want,” Donghyuck cuts him, index finger coming to rest over Mark’s parted lips as he stares right into his eyes, “Nobody cares what we do in here, Mark, we are all just humans behind these walls. And I’m sure you believe God, too, will understand—you’re really fond of Him, aren’t you?”

“ _Don’t_ —”

“C’mon, I’ll even let you pretend I’m some pretty girl when you press me face down into the mattress if you really can’t stand the thought of fucking someone like me. Would you want me to wear panties? Paint my lips for you?”

“What the fuck—You don’t even know what you’re saying, this is _crazy, Donghyuck—_ ”

But Donghyuck does, has a glint in his eye that tells Mark this is a battle he lost the very first time they met and let their hands meet the other’s touch; reminds him that this is the very thing he’s come this far looking for, the raging desire of feeling something other than hurt, a cruel reminder of all the things he’s lost.

And so, “You can try to run, Mark,” he will always say from now on, fire engraved on stone, “but when the day comes, even the angels will sink down to their knees. I read it in the Bible.” Donghyuck did not—but that, too, Mark believes anyways; faith is a choice, and so is ignorance.

The feeling of Donghyuck’s lips over his own when he moves to sit on his lap in the tightness of the booth is heavenly absolution of every single one of Mark’s wrongs. They part pliantly under the pressure of his tongue, mold perfectly to the shape of his smile and his pout and every single sigh that escapes between them at the relief it is to finally attain the cusp you’d forever dreamed of; and when Donghyuck pulls away to stare into Mark’s eyes, his mouth is slick with spit and his eyes are dark with the look Mark already knows will haunt him until the very last moment he’s got left in this world.

And so he kisses him again—and again and again, until Donghyuck starts panting and begs him to take him home, an angel and a demon and the very embodiment of a destiny’s path sent Mark’s way to lead him towards the fire of his own personal Hell.

_your mouth on his tears open a gash—and it bleeds in and it bleeds out and then he’s calling out your name, but you won’t hear; salvation is a stairway to heaven away, and you never learned how to climb._

### Last night’s night

The inside of Donghyuck’s penthouse is pristine clean and immaculately well-kept when Mark stumbles in clumsily following its owner’s confident steps.

The white light emanating from the lightbulbs embedded on the ceiling is so bright it’s almost blinding, reflecting on the polished surface of clear furniture and casting over the wide living room the illusion of a mirage, an eerie place where to be kept safe. Mark imagines that if Heaven were a physical place, it would resemble Donghyuck’s house in the way purity drips off its every wall, in the way the shapes are all rounded soft and seemingly untouched, clear canvas not allowed to be tainted. The duvet tucked perfectly into place over Donghyuck’s bed is pastel cream and mushy like a cloud, threatening to trap Mark amidst its cotton limbs and keep him in place forever, just a breath away from sin, the honey on his lips still not drawing the stain he so desperately aches to engrave on the back of his eyes.

But Donghyuck, of course, does not plan on letting Mark slip down the path of his deeply rooted Christian morals tonight, ever so adamant on leading him into temptation of a kind he won’t ever learn to forget. When he lets go of his grip on the front of Mark’s jacket and pulls away from their heated kiss, he only does so he can use his hands to push him down onto the mattress, plush thighs parting when he moves to straddle the sides of Mark’s hips and rest the swell of his ass right over his crotch like a promise, the prophecy none of them should have ever been told.

“Good?” Donghyuck asks then, a little bit breathless when he leans down to trail his mouth down the column of Mark’s neck; wet lips sucking bruises into the skin, a claim just like the finger of a dead man pointing at his murderer on the night of a crime.

“Yeah,” comes Mark’s choked out reply, the effect of alcohol no longer helping his hands to stop trembling when he places them on Donghyuck’s waist and dares his fingers to reach under the hem of his flowy deep purple top, beige sweater long discarded, touching warm melted caramel turned into skin, “You?”

“I’m perfect,” Donghyuck chuckles, finally pulling away to stare at the work of art he’s painted across the expanse of Mark’s throat, the cross over the treasure Mark telling him where to start digging if he wants to get to the great prize, “but that’s something I know you could already tell.”

 _You think of yourself with the grace with which others have thought of gods before_ , Mark doesn’t have the guts to say, but the thought worms its way into his brain and stays right there, settling into the clefts on its surface and building a home set to last for a lifetime. Instead, he just laughs along to the curve of Donghyuck’s smirk and lets his hands wander further up the way of toned stomach until they reach his chest, where the force of his heartbeat is enough to tickle the palm of his right hand.

“It is,” Mark concedes when Donghyuck recoils his touch one beat and leans into it the next, the pad of his thumb brushing over a sensitive nipple and drawing out a beautiful sigh from spit slick lips, “You’re beautiful.”

“Enough to let me bring you back home, after all,” Donghyuck grins, leaning down once again so he can slot his lips with Mark’s one more time, tongue staining the inside of his mouth with the taste of delirium burning hotter than the Sun, “I’d never met someone so difficult before.”

“Do all the boys you meet throw themselves to the ground for you?” Mark hums in between kisses and gentle rubs of his fingers to the small of Donghyuck’s back when he presses his chest to his own, leaving almost no space between their bodies for air to run.

Donghyuck whines softly into his mouth when the hard outline of his cock rubs directly against Mark’s own, hot enough for him to feel it through the two layers of denim and cloth keeping their skin away from touch. “Almost all,” he whispers, opening his eyes to stare into Mark’s while the fingers of his right hand slide down his chest to start working open the buttons on his shirt, “Would you do it for me, Mark?”

“I wouldn’t kneel for anyone,” Mark whispers back, goosebumps raising on the pale skin of his chest when Donghyuck runs the nail of a finger down its center, leaving a faded red line behind, “Some things are reserved for holier grounds.”

“You’re so cute,” Donghyuck giggles, pushing the panels of Mark’s shirt aside until his whole torso is left bare before his eyes, unblemished and ready for him to taint, “It’s almost funny how you say all of this and then want me so openly.”

“Maybe I’ve got nothing to lose,” Mark shrugs, tugging upwards on the edge of Donghyuck’s top so he’ll get the hint and take it off, “Some things you can never know, didn’t you say?”

The way Donghyuck squints his eyes down at him makes Mark feel powerful and leaves him utterly defenseless under the fierce fire of his stare, sweet golden turned molten coal with the weight of a thousand untold stories blending in with lust. This one, too, is a picture that his brain takes and holds dear in between its medulla and its stem, just so it will be able to replay it in the theater of Mark’s dreams every single time he dares to close his eyes; and his fingers ache for ink in which to dip, if only so they could write the songs Mark sings every time Donghyuck looks down at him as if he held the key to every answer tucked away beneath the jutting of his ribs.

_but he aches for you so sweetly, teetering on the edge of desire on unsteady feet, and he’s telling you please don’t leave me and he’s telling you i will eat you alive; the devil doesn’t wear prada—he wears beige cardigan sweaters and deep purple v-necks, and he’s waiting for you round every corner that you take, let me in, he is whispering, i will never let you go._

“You’re quite something, Mark Lee,” Donghyuck hums, deft fingers swiftly pulling the silky cloth of his own shirt above his head and leaving it to fall forgotten on the bedroom floor, one less barrier for them to overcome, “I believe I’ve told you that, too.”

“You have,” Mark gives, sitting up so he can hold Donghyuck on his lap and lick his way into his mouth one more time now that his hands have an endless expanse of skin to explore, lips aching to taste every mark and mole just so he can catalog the feeling on the blurred list of things he used to enjoy, “You also talk quite a lot.”

“Maybe I do it on purpose,” Donghyuck giggles, tongue peeking out from between pearly white teeth to lick along the seam of Mark’s lips with the only purpose of dirtying him further, weave him deeper into this web he already knows he won’t ever get to escape, “Maybe I want you to write about me.”

“Could be,” Mark simply hums, obediently pressing his back to the bed when Donghyuck pushes him down again after finally removing his shirt. From there, he feels privileged to be allowed the view of a boy as beautiful as the Sun baring himself before his eyes, slowly pushing down his pants until he’s left in nothing but underwear and the braids still adorning his silver hair; sin molded around the soft curves and strong muscles that serve as a vessel for the one thing that’s meant to forever haunt him, the very memory of the day he lets down his guard and sways along to the force of the tempest that it is to recognize himself craving another man’s skin.

When Donghyuck crawls back on top of Mark he does it as if injected with divine purpose, his tan skin shining golden with the lights and shadows casted by the lamp they forgot to turn off after stumbling out of the living room on the other side of the half-open door. The front of his Calvin Klein briefs is already starting to dampen with the steady drool of his arousal, and Mark spares a single thought to the fact that he can’t even remember which underwear he chose to wear tonight before Donghyuck rolls down his hips and leaves his retinas burning white with a flash of delight.

“Sensitive,” Donghyuck mumbles, mostly to himself, when he runs a hand from the side of Mark’s neck all the way down his flank and watches the muscles hidden away by Mark’s slowly flushing skin jump in surprise, “Interesting.”

“Is it,” Mark gasps, hands flying to grab at the ashy strands of Donghyuck’s hair when he leans down to wrap his lips around his left nipple, tongue and teeth gently scraping at skin with the sole goal of making him squirm. Donghyuck’s fingers don’t stay put, but instead they tickle down the sides of Mark’s belly until he’s almost jumping out of the bed with the urge of curling into himself.

“You’re ticklish,” Donghyuck giggles, watching Mark’s cheeks flare red alongside the rapid rise and fall of his chest and the strain of his hard dick beneath the seam of his jeans, “It’s good to know.”

“Yeah, well,” Mark _burns_ , desire pooling into his stomach and heart leaping into his throat at the ethereal image of Donghyuck looking at him like he _cares_ , as if there is no one in the world he would do this for but himself, “Stop teasing, c’mon.”

“But where’s the fun in that?” Donghyuck all but whines, returning his mouth to the sharp edge of Mark’s jaw to start yet another trail of kisses that runs down his neck and his chest, leaving behind the damp shape of his lips as he slides down the mattress to keep kissing and biting at the sensitive skin of Mark’s stomach.

And Mark can only watch, really, as Donghyuck keeps his gaze innocently pinned on his own while he runs his tongue down the fine line of light hair leading from his bellybutton into the waist of his too tight jeans, as if it were alright for him to look like a fallen angel losing his wings for the mere sake of teaching Mark what it is like to feel. Donghyuck’s lips are feathery-like when they touch the sensitive skin of his navel, making the muscles on Mark’s abdomen contract, and he takes the feeling of being worshipped by a boy who belongs sitting on a throne right among the stars and notes it down on the endless list of sins he carries on his back just like Atlas carried the world—vows himself to never forget how delicious it is to give into desire, to embrace want with the chest of an honest man.

When he’s made sure to leave Mark’s skin blooming pink and purple and red with the proof of his crime, Donghyuck moves his body with an elegance that does not suit their current situation until he can properly kneel in between Mark’s parted legs. He smiles to himself when Mark’s thighs futilely attempt to press together when Donghyuck rakes his nails over the material of his jeans right over his inner thighs hard enough to tickle through it, leaving him squirming when Donghyuck’s own body serves as a barrier to keep them open for him to play; and then, with the confidence of that who knows himself worthy of every single blessed thing in the world, Donghyuck leans down to unabashedly nuzzle the bulge of Mark’s impossibly hard dick through his pants.

Donghyuck’s gaze doesn’t waver, not even when Mark closes his eyes and throws his head back for a second in order to try and ground himself to this moment instead of letting go embarrassingly quick; and when their eyes meet again, Donghyuck uses his teeth to slowly slide down the zipper of Mark’s jeans, the devil in disguise that works his fingers while keeping Mark in a blissful trance until he’s too left bare before his eyes, ready to be swallowed whole by him until there’s not a single thought in his mind but that of Donghyuck’s name.

“Needy, hm?” Donghyuck dares to giggle, his hand grabbing a hold of Mark’s weeping cock to rub his thumb over his damp, pink head until he hisses, horribly sensitive, “Glad to know I’m not the only one.”

“It’s—” Mark tries, but is cut off by a gasp getting caught in his throat when Donghyuck moves his lips to leave a kiss against his frenulum, liquid fire and melted ice sending his senses into overdrive, “—been a while, _God_ —”

“Not Him,” Donghyuck frowns, dragging his tongue over the length of Mark’s cock as if it could be some sort of punishment, “ _I_ am the one making you feel good right now.”

“Yes,” Mark breathes out, muscles impossibly taut with tension, “You—”

But it’s been a while since he realized Donghyuck never allows him to finish his sentences.

While Mark tries to find the words to say, Donghyuck busies himself by wrapping his plump, red swollen lips over the head of his dick until they’re stretched thin around its thick girth, his tongue swiping over it before he hums softly, making the vibration travel all the way down into Mark’s core. Before Mark has the time to quieten the moan that is drawn out of his throat by the action, Donghyuck is already swallowing down as far as he can go without choking, eyes fluttering closed as he suckles on Mark’s cock like it’s the last thing he will ever get to do.

And Mark almost curls into himself with how utterly _good_ it feels, with the insanity that is to be allowed to watch Donghyuck’s eyelashes bat against his pretty, dotted cheeks while they grow swollen with his dick, but before he can bring himself to stop his hands fly to Donghyuck’s hair to gently pull on the silver strands, some of the thin little braids coming undone when they fine hairs catch on his nails. “Stop, stop, oh my God.”

“What’s wrong?” Donghyuck is quick to ask, incredibly fast to pull away from Mark until there’s not a point of contact between them except that of their legs brushing together when he sits up, Donghyuck’s overwhelmingly soft and bare where Mark’s are rough with hair, “Did I do something? Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m, just—” Donghyuck’s hands are gentle when they cradle Mark’s face, fingers careful where they play with the longish strands of his dark brown hair, and the kindness of it all is almost enough to make tears well up in his eyes, “Can we—maybe it’s better if we just—I wanna make you feel good, too.”

“Oh, Mark Lee,” Donghyuck giggles, face lighting up as he leans down to press fluttering kisses all over Mark’s panting lips at the way he’s got him so delirious already, “You wanna fuck me, don’t you? You just had to say.”

“I,” Mark tries and fails, eyes screwing shut when Donghyuck rolls down his hips and makes their cocks rub against each other’s deliciously, “Yeah, please. Let me do it, please.”

“But of course,” Donghyuck hums, shifting until he’s straddling Mark’s hips once again and using his knees to balance himself while he reaches underneath one of his pillows for lube and a string of condoms—enough to make Mark wonder just how used to this he is, when Mark himself had almost forgotten what it was like to taste skin, when he’s making Mark feel like there is something else between them than just sex in the way their eyes just _knew_ when they first met.

Thoughts are quick to leave Mark’s brain, once again, when he realizes that Donghyuck has just gone ahead and started fingering himself open right above Mark’s twitching length, soft sighs and grunts escaping his lips as he tries to stretch himself open around two of his own digits as if in a hurry to get Mark’s dick inside himself. “You’re so pretty,” Mark says, stuck in awe as he runs his hands down the warm skin of Donghyuck’s sides, feeling the strain of his muscles as he tries to get the angle right.

“Yeah,” Donghyuck just grunts, eyes screwing closed as he worms a third finger inside, obscene sounds dripping like ambrosia from his mouth, “Can’t wait to have you inside me, want you to make me feel you for days, Mark—”

“Shit, Donghyuck—”

“Fuck, you’re going to stretch me open so good, aren’t you?” Donghyuck keeps spilling filth with no remorse of what he feels, “So big, I want to feel you inside my _tummy, want you to leave me aching—_ ”

And there is, as with everything in life, just so much Mark can take before he breaks.

He’s not quite sure what takes over his muscles, overloaded with tension and desire and the need to touch the boy who’s got the Sun dripping from his pores in the form of sweat, but before Donghyuck has time to open his eyes Mark is gently pulling on his wrist to ease his fingers out of himself and then flipping them over until Donghyuck lays splayed on the mattress, eyes wide as he stares at Mark’s flushed face.

“Fuck,” Donghyuck whines, back arching when Mark’s thigh slots in between his open legs and presses gently over his weeping dick, “Oh please, c’mon, fuck me—”

“Turn around,” Mark grunts, heart skipping a beat inside his ribcage when Donghyuck willingly complies and moves until he’s resting his weight on his knees and forearms, the swell of his ass presented to him like the forbidden apple hanging from that tree on Eden, “You’re so beautiful, shit.”

“Mark,” Donghyuck whines, hiding his reddened face into his hands as he accentuates the arch of his back, the treat no man would ever be able to deny, “Please.”

And Mark, as if led by the snake, can do nothing but obey.

It simply goes like this—Mark pushes himself into the tightness of Donghyuck’s hole and makes his hands grip his hips in fear of collapsing if he’s left to endure this without a hold, and Donghyuck cries out his name and pushes back against his cock and they fuck like this, losing of track of where one ends and the other begins, so impossibly carnal Mark is scared their skin is going to melt and leave them tied together for a lifetime.

It goes like this—if Mark closes his eyes, he can pretend as if he’s not paving his own pathway into eternal fire, can pretend that in the morning there won’t be a stain in the form of Donghyuck’s lips marring his neck with the scarlet letter reserved for those who have given into temptation and will now never be allowed past the gates of Heaven, can make himself believe that the sound of his name spilling from Donghyuck’s mouth is one he’ll be able to forget in the years to come.

But Mark—he doesn’t close them, leaves his eyes wide open and keeps looking at Donghyuck when he turns his face to the side and lets words drool out of his swollen lips into the pillow, calling out for him and begging for things he’d never thought himself able to deliver; soaks in the broken, high-pitched noises he punches out of Donghyuck’s chest with every thrust and lets them drive him insane, if only because he is the reason behind every one of them; pushes his fingers into Donghyuck’s mouth just to quieten down his cries, to feel him closer, reach deeper into him as if divine absolution was waiting for him right behind the pink of his gums and under the velvet of his tongue, and Donghyuck just arches beneath him and prays to a God that doesn’t sit above.

And when they are both left laying on their backs side by side, panting wetly into the open of the room with come drying on their skin, the air warm and stuffy and reeking of the deed they’ve just get done, Mark closes his eyes as he feels Donghyuck close his fingers around his wrist and thinks that, for it to be a sin, there is nothing that’s ever felt better for him that this night and Donghyuck’s kiss.

_and he’s got you where he wants you, and you’ve asked for it and now he’ll never forgive you, for he will chase you to the very edge of the world until you tip over, cosmic balance shifting with his motion. Dante reached heaven, but for you—there’s no greater salvation, baby, than the one you will find in his arms._


	2. Chapter 2

### After midnight

In the morning, when Donghyuck wakes up under the unwavering stare of the Sun, Mark Lee is gone.

It’s not news—Donghyuck has already lost count of the number of boys he’s brought home one night only for him to wake up to faint memories and nothing else by the time morning comes. He knows, deep down in the way his chest grumbles tiredly around the void it’s filled with, that it’s not something he should be proud of; remembers, if only through gritted teeth and teary cheeks, that there were mornings full of something else once, a feeling so entirely different from the one that overcomes his senses after an evening at the club that even daring to think about it during every waking moment feels vile, the most wicked mockery at the way he lost all he ever thought to have.

By now, Donghyuck already knows by heart the way waking up alone sure is more of a vicious wakeup call than any alarm ever could, doesn’t even dare to dream about things not being like this because it was him that asked for it anyways. Yet still, today, the revelation that Mark did not stay stings more than it should for a reason he doesn’t know how to call, and Donghyuck has to press the back of his wrists to his eyes in order to shield himself from sunlight and yet another empty other half of the mattress. 

It is not enough of a trench against the force of the images striking down his every wall like lighting and then displaying the proof of his shame in the darkness that pools on the back of his eyelids. In the moment it takes for Donghyuck to realize and then move his hands away to open his eyes as wide as they will go if only to stare at something tangible, something _real_ , he is forced to witness the replay of last night’s movie like a punishment for prisoners of the land nobody ever thought possible to conquest. In that little time, he is assaulted by his cries and his moans and the taste of Mark Lee’s name on the back of his tongue, by the way Mark held onto him as if he were scared Donghyuck was going to slip away from his touch, by the embarrassing moment in which he reached over to grip Mark’s wrist in a silent beg for him not to leave, as always bittersweet, knowing it to be impossible for someone to stay after the clock strikes midnight and makes the spell of lust vanish.

In broad daylight, held at gunpoint by the way he wasn’t drunk enough to forget about his barely concealed unreasonable wish, Donghyuck doesn’t understand why he did that. Nobody stays, that is something he’s known for a long while now, and yet there’s something more than the mere fact of good things being impossible to last making something in the damp cavern of his chest feel wrong.

Donghyuck doesn’t want anyone to stay—not Mark Lee nor Sungchan nor any one of the boys that came before them, not even Renjun if he were to return from his new life far away from Donghyuck’s awful tunes—, because if they were to try and peel at the layers he’s so carefully built around his frame they would find the way his heart no longer beats inside his chest, the way he hates every single fiber of his being for the very thing he’s become, a pretty face for some and an ugly beast for others and no further more; and then Donghyuck would be left with nothing, bare muscles and bones shown off beautifully yet held together for no purpose.

Mark Lee doesn’t stay just how nobody else before him did and Donghyuck thanks him for it, but when he walks to the kitchen to make himself a coffee and tries to forget about him just like he’s done with all the rest, Donghyuck is met by the silent tale of a feeling carving letters in blood into the back of his neck and a note left on the kitchen table like there is no place in the world for such thing as regret.

_“his bathroom soap smells like flowers and he snores when he forgets he’s no longer dreaming alone, and he tells you ‘write about me’ like it matters even though there’s a water stain awaiting for you at home, and so what if you wrote?_

just some random early scribbling!! sorry if it sucks haha, text me when you wake up if you want :)”

### The way they leave

 **hchnlee:** _i do not snore._

For so long, Donghyuck has believed himself to be unlovable.

It’s the one truth he cannot reject, no matter how badly Jeno and Jaemin try to tell him he is wrong, no matter how many comments he receives on his Instagram post telling him he’s sexy and beautiful and everything a person could ever hope to be; because there will always be someone ready to shoot him down if he dares to climb up the stair that leads to happiness.

The Naver article mentioning the mediocrity of his latest _ELLE_ photoshoot. The girl on Twitter commenting on how _‘his face looked as if he were smelling shit’_ when he walked down the runway last week. The disappointed frown Sungchan sent his way when he saw him with Mark at the club on Saturday. The way not even Huang Renjun was able to accept Donghyuck’s own way of feeling and loving for more than a couple of years, the way he only learnt to tolerate it during the next, the way he left with no remorse at the first chance of a better life away from Donghyuck’s ugly claws and wicked soul.

Donghyuck knows it’s been long since he lost the train to salvation, because even his very best efforts to care for the man he so badly loved were all in vain, never enough, Renjun’s late _I’m sorry_ the last nail for his coffin of disgust.

 **onyourm__ark:** _that’s not what i heard haha_

Donghyuck is unlovable, his heart is broken and the pieces have all been stolen by winds coming from places no one can even dream to reach, but Mark Lee looks at him as if he’d been the one to hang the Sun on the sky and talks to him as if there were more to him than pretty skin and Donghyuck doesn’t understand it, cannot phantom the reason why a man with words of magic flowing through his bloodstream would want to lose his time with him, but oh, does he want to.

 **hchnlee:** _aren’t you a novelist?? maybe you’re just making it all up_

Donghyuck would love to close his eyes and pretend there is not something wrong with the way such an ugly soul has made home out of his golden body, but even if he did, every time he opened them he would be faced with the evidence that tells that even the prettiest people on Earth have secrets they would never dare to tell.

Donghyuck fed on Renjun’s love like a vampire would on blood under a new moon, taking and taking until there was nothing left for him to steal anymore, and the moment Renjun ran away from the beast he’d become Donghyuck was left with abstinence syndrome licking at the seams of his chest in a desperate cry from help, _there’s no shelter if he leaves, nobody ever will look at you the way you looked at him_.

And still through it all, even if he’d tried to turn a blind eye on it, Donghyuck always thought Renjun never did learn to understand the way he loved him; that he put his all into trying to heal Donghyuck’s endless issues and in the way forgot that there needs to be more to a relationship than soft bandaids and gentle caresses, that loving goes beyond simple acceptance and requires something else.

 **onyourm__ark:** _what i left for you was a poem tho!! and it’s true.. you’re kinda cute when you sleep haha_

But Mark Lee.

If Donghyuck’s way of loving was too much of a hurricane for Renjun to do more than tolerate until the tempest got so wild he had the need to run away, the steel armor Donghyuck has now built around himself to protect his marred chest from any more pointless suffering must shine bright enough to conceal his every fault, for Mark Lee doesn’t seem able to stop himself from being entranced by every single thing he does.

 **hchnlee:** _not cute enough for breakfast though?_

Because yeah, Renjun tolerated his love and then tried to make up for the empty spaces with softness enough to dull Donghyuck’s dangerous edges, but Mark Lee feels like someone who would celebrate Donghyuck as if he were the most precious person in the world and fuck if it doesn’t make a fatal catastrophe seem a breath away from breaking loose.

 **onyourm__ark:** _cute enough for a whole breakfast buffet, trust me!!! i would’ve made one for you but my editor called me and i had to run—you don’t wanna see ten when he’s mad haha_

Donghyuck sees it all in the way Mark aches blissfully under every stare, in the way he craves his every touch and begs for more of his words as if he were truly something to be admired and not a pretty sculpture slowly chipping away under the bite of time and touches that only want to take from him, in the way he put more time intro trying to understand the reasons behind the sadness unwillingly bleeding into Donghyuck’s tone the first night they met than Renjun did during the last two years of their relationship, and Donghyuck really shouldn’t be making comparisons he’s bound to regret sooner than later but there’s a smile tugging at the seams of his lips with every word Mark Lee writes and _oh_.

 **hchnlee:** _you’re the cute one. maybe next time?_

It’s confusing in the warmest sort of ways, how he somehow _wants_ to keep talking to Mark even though he never talks again to any of the boys he fucks, how he wants to _see_ Mark again even though he never fucks the same boy twice, how Mark doesn’t make it all feel like it’s irremediably headed towards the waking moment in which Donghyuck will have to choose between hurting yet another good guy or bearing with something too big for his weak shoulders to endure.

 **onyourm__ark:** _surely next time, lee haechan :)_

Mark talks about next times as if Donghyuck deserved second chances, as if he weren’t rotten at the core and too putrid for someone who’s got universes building behind the alluring glint of his starry eyes and underneath the delicious caress of his calloused hands on Donghyuck’s bare skin.

And Donghyuck—he tells himself it’s only physical, that he is allowed to relish into the memory of a good fuck and tries not to delve into how badly he would have liked it if Mark had stayed, just to make sure he’s not a product of yet another hopeless dream; tells himself some boys are prettier than others and that yet none will want to stay, no matter how adoringly they look at you even when trying to simply be your _friends_ ; tells him that people like Mark, good and honest and gentle like there should be none, will not stand on the same side as himself when the Apocalypse comes, for devotion in Donghyuck shifts into something dangerous when it’s swallowed down with alocohol and professed in the darkness of his own room.

And yet still, no matter how hard he tries to drown the thoughts in black coffee and declining Jeno’s calls, Mark’s voice resonates inside his chest and tells him _‘you’re beautiful’_ , and says _‘I want to see you again’_ , and so the goofy smile on his face—it stays there even when Jeno has to walk into his apartment yet once again to drag him to an schedule, memories replaying themselves fresh inside his brain without the too familiar taste of pain dripping down the slope of Donghyuck’s chin.

 **hchnlee:** _i can’t wait to see you again, mark lee._

_the way he looks at you reminds you of a song you had forgotten. (i can’t believe you had forgot)._

### The lips of a crowd

Donghyuck’s hair is no longer silver the next time he stands under the camera flashes of yet another one of Na Jaemin’s photoshoots.

This time, almost two weeks away from the night when he learnt what Mark Lee’s tongue tastes like, the loose strands framing his round face— _too round_ , perhaps, like some people in blog posts usually say in voices that sometimes get stuck in his head, _maybe he ought to lose a few pounds_ , as if Donghyuck were not a person but some _thing_ held on auction for everyone to pick apart and bet on—are died deep dark red, like the blood his full lips would suck out of a dotted neck if only it would mean he’d get in return something just _his_ to feel. The clothes hanging from his shoulders are tight and expensive and revealing in a way he hadn’t tried in too long, and Donghyuck wants to be self-conscious and cover up but Jaemin keeps cheering on him as he clicks the shutter and time flies by so fast he doesn’t even get to try.

The led lights of photography studios are something akin to family for Donghyuck by now. After a little over five years in the industry, he’s more used to being looked at through an expensive lens than with honest open eyes, and the sound of having his picture taken is one that haunts him even when he closes his eyes, the incessant call for that who’s only good to be displayed as motionless art and then used until there’s nothing left inside his heart.

Na Jaemin, just like his camera and his lights and the teasing tone curving his smile when he calls him _sexy_ once again, is also family for Donghyuck. Lee Jeno’s boyfriend since college days, the very embodiment of the foreign concept of _soulmates_ , Donghyuck is yet to find himself thinking, even if it’s just for once, that they’re not made for each other. Where Jeno is Donghyuck’s best friend and his manager and his unwavering support, the active force that wakes him up in the mornings and the voice that tells him he’s strong enough not to give up even after the tempest broke loose when Renjun chose to go, Jaemin is the gentleness that comes with knowing stares and worried texts and constant invitations for lunch and dinner at their shared home, acts of love that Donghyuck doesn’t think he deserves but still accepts every time simply because Jaemin is happy like this, and then so is he.

Jeno and Jaemin are Donghyuck’s family and the only real people he’s got left by his side these days, and so when Jeno automatically reaches over to pick Donghyuck’s phone after it pings with the notification of a new text while Donghyuck is sitting next to Jaemin looking at the miniatures of the pictures on his computer’s screen, Donghyuck thinks nothing of it because it’s _normal_ , what’s been happening for the last few years of his life.

And then Jeno gasps, a sound that is as delicate as it is sharp, and Donghyuck’s heart drops into his stomach as he turns around to stare at him with wide open eyes. “What is it?” he asks worriedly, hands already starting to sweat with the putrid taste of dread pooling under his tongue.

“What is it? You tell me!” Jeno whines, and Jaemin must be a psychic because he _giggles_ even before Jeno speaks, “Who the hell is ‘Mark Lee _lion face emoji_ ’, huh?”

“What?” Donghyuck cries back, two seconds before realization dawns upon him with the weight of a thousand years worth of suffering heavy on his spine, “Oh my God, are you for real? Leave me alone!”

“Mark Lee? _A lion’s face emoji?_ Who is it, Hyuckie?” Jaemin is quick to tease, the horrifying kindergarten-teacher voice he loves to annoy Donghyuck with making his words sound too thick for Donghyuck to chew.

“What are you now, my parents? What does it matter who he is, huh?” The defensiveness in his tone is a dead giveaway to all the things Donghyuck is too scared to say, a telltale of the way he doesn’t know how to define what Mark Lee is to him, for he is not a friend nor a lover nor any of the other terms someone could use to talk about a beautiful boy they’ve barely just met.

Jeno raises his eyebrows incredulously, and his eyes forego Donghyuck’s to meet Jaemin’s own behind his back in a warning for the storm of questions about to inevitably rain over his head. “It doesn’t _matter_ who he is, Donghyuck. What matters is the fact that he’s _asking you to meet today_ and that you’ve _saved his number_ , and the way you’re acting like a kid hiding a puppy underneath his bed.”

Jaemin snorts out a laugh while Donghyuck’s cheeks burn red under the accusation, and he’s tempted to break something just for the sake of diverting the attention from himself. Still, he does not budge. “Can’t I have a friend you two don’t know about or what?”

“You could, but I see no reason why you’d want to hide him from us,” Jaemin shrugs when Jeno just laughs, “You know we want you to be alright, Hyuck. We would never be mean to you.”

“Well, you surely are being a pair of _bullies right now_ —”

“We are so not!” Jeno huffs, reluctantly handing Donghyuck his phone back when he extends out a hand in a silent request, “We just really want to know. You barely meet up with people who isn’t us if it’s not to—”

“If it’s not to fuck?” Donghyuck finishes the sentence for Jeno, tongue quick and sharp teeth that do not really know where to bite, “Maybe that’s what it is. Maybe he wants to fuck me.”

“That’s not what I was going to say,” Jeno frowns, but there’s a shadow of guilt stretching over his cheekbones that tells Donghyuck it _is_ what he was thinking, “But, you know, that’s all fine. You can still tell us—we want to support you, it’s not bad if you meet someone and—”

“He’s not _someone_ , Jen,” Donghyuck sighs, standing up after returning on his hand the gentle squeeze Jaemin leaves on the curve of his shoulder, “Listen, I know you two worry a lot, but you don’t—I’m okay, alright? It’s not like I’m going to go get married behind your backs or anything. He’s just a nice guy I met, maybe I’m just… trying to be friends?”

It’s difficult to explain the things you don’t even understand yourself, like why the people who claim to love you leave when you least expect it or why the people who should run away from all the darkness in your soul stay and try to peel your layers until they can reach and heal your heart. Donghyuck doesn’t know why Mark Lee keeps trying, with his texts and the way he sometimes calls Donghyuck when they’re both awake well past midnight to talk about nothing as if they’re lifelong friends, to look past Donghyuck’s gates when there is nothing to be found there—not a person worth caring for and definitely not love to fill the blank pages of a notebook like Mark surely wishes there could—; but he tries and for once Donghyuck does not want to run from it, because it’s been months since he’d last wanted to talk to someone and years since he’s shared a heartfelt laugh.

Donghyuck finds himself not knowing how to explain what is it that he wants from Mark Lee, because it cannot be the love he knows he doesn’t deserve and it cannot be mere friendship when he’s already aching to feel the touch of his lips to the sensitive skin of his neck once again, and so, when he feels Jeno’s and Jaemin’s incredulous stares fixated on the nervous grimace of his face, Donghyuck stands up with a shrug and says, “I’ll introduce you guys to him one day,” like it doesn’t sound like a line straight out of a sci-fi movie version of his life, before he starts to walk back towards the dressing room.

Jeno whines, always wanting to know more if only so he can keep protecting Donghyuck from the demons he knows haunt him on every waking hour, but Jaemin just giggles and says, “Remember to come home for dinner on Sunday!”, like he’s been saying for the past seven months; and Donghyuck grins at him over his shoulder and yells, “Will do!”, and returns his eyes to the screen of his phone to type,

 **hchnlee:** _see you at the club at 9 tonight? ;)_

Because some things are better left unexplained—and the way Mark Lee’s silly reply to his text makes Donghyuck’s heart jump inside his chest while he slips back into his regular clothes is too pleasant for him to want to look into it any more.

_the boy in the mirror is now covered in gold and silver and tells you there is room for forgiveness, and you want to believe it bad enough to let down your guard and listen,_

_as if you hadn’t tasted the apple, as if you were still holy,_

_despite all the things you’ve left in ruins._

### The Sun, the Moon and their Eclipse, pt. I

Donghyuck notices there is something wrong with Mark tonight after the second sip to his pink-tinted drink.

Mark can’t blame him. After all, the bags under his eyes are more black than purple these days, dark scars of his very own battle against the demons that haunt him every single night, and even though his smiles are as sincere as they have always been around Donghyuck, they seem to be crooked in all the wrong places—like puzzle pieces fitting by sheer force of will, edges bent and gaps unclosed, bare feeling bleeding out through the cracks.

“It’s been a tough couple weeks,” Mark says before Donghyuck can ask, shame grabbing at his hollow cheeks and making him keep his eyes on Donghyuck’s glass and not on the curious arch of his perfectly plucked eyebrows, “It’s a boring story, though. I don’t wanna make you fall asleep.”

“Oh, c’mon,” Donghyuck huffs, crossing his right leg over his left thigh and making the impossibly tight black leather jeans he’s wearing stretch with the motion, the black-painted nails of his left right hand tapping against his glass the tune of a gentle lullaby, “as if my stories weren’t boring as hell too. I like listening to you.”

The ease with which Donghyuck says certain things is almost impish, and it never fails to leave Mark speechless. It’s been too long now for him to say he _remembers_ , but if he were to think hard enough, he’d be able to recall how hard it was to tell Eunkyung he enjoyed her company before they started dating, how calling her beautiful left his throat scratched for days to come with an anguish he never really learnt to explain where it was coming from.

What Mark does remember is how ten years later, with a confession, a move overseas and a marriage proposal on his back, he’d struggled to tell her the truth that was set to end life as the both of them had ever known it—how he’d gone a year keeping the turmoil that was tearing apart his everything silent, letting it make him sick to the stomach if only because he couldn’t bear to tell the girl who’d never done a single bad thing to him that he wasn’t strong enough to keep fighting for their relationship, that he was just tired, unable to _feel_.

What Mark, too, does remember is the way Donghyuck arched underneath him whenever he’d praise him that night, begging him for more, as if he’d never known someone like Mark before; the way his own heart skips a beat every time Donghyuck refers to him as if he deserved to be handled gently, as if there was something worthy still tucked away under his lungs, as if he still hadn’t been broken enough.

“Your stories aren’t boring,” Mark makes sure to tell Donghyuck, a pressing need to reassure him tugging at the bottom of his belly until he’s almost dizzy with it, “I like listening to you too.”

“I know, Mark Lee,” Donghyuck grins, and it hasn’t even been a month since they first met but Mark has already learnt to tell Donghyuck’s teasing apart from his genuine words, knows himself in a safe zone where he’s allowed to coexist with this wonder of a boy for now, while some things are still left untold, “you’ve called me twice in the past week.”

“You said you were going to get carpal tunnel from texting so much,” Mark frowns, and it draws a laugh from Donghyuck that is so honest he doesn’t even try to make it sound pretty, instead letting the airy sounds get punched from his chest with pure delight, “I was trying to be a gentleman.”

“How thoughtful of you,” Donghyuck keeps giggling, and outside the club the Moon shines brighter because of his happiness, “And here I was thinking you wanted to hear my voice.”

“Maybe I did,” Mark grins back, and despite their differences and their similarities and the possibility of someone staring at them and wondering if they’ve gone mad with gin, the both of them burst into a fit of laughter that’s healing for the soul and borderline _inappropriate_ for places like these at the sight that is to see the other smile with glee. “I mean it! I’ve told you these weeks have sucked, and you’re fun to talk to.”

Donghyuck’s eyes shine with something gentle even under the harsh led lights of this reserved part of the club, and despite his fiery red hair and the way black leather hugs his every curve tight enough to restrict breath, he looks kinder than any of the demons Mark’s ever had to face before. “Now that’s something I hadn’t been told in a while,” Donghyuck says softly, lips pursed together when he stares at Mark as if he knows something he cannot even start to think about, and then brings his straw to his mouth and stares at Mark with eyes so open as he sucks that Mark feels himself about to pass out. “Tell me about it, c’mon. I really wanna know.”

For a second, Mark stares at Donghyuck in silence and tucks away into a pocket of his brain the way he feels cared for by someone who should not care. Donghyuck’s eyelashes are thick with mascara applied so carefully it looks natural enough, and they frame a gaze that tells him there is no way he can keep a secret safe when it’s just the both of them sharing drinks and fighting to restrain their desire to kiss each other’s thoughts away until they can only remember the sound of their names. “Alright,” Mark smiles, grabbing his bottle of beer by the neck and lifting it to his lips to take a ceremonious sip, like a premonition of something big, “but when it gets boring, remember it was you that asked for it.”

_a boy like a mirage stares at you from across the table and tells you that sometimes dreams come true, and when you tell him you’ve been broken he says nothing and starts to search for pieces to fix as if you could ever deserve to be the one he finally chooses_ — _as if he won’t be gone in the next three blinks of your eye, your lips dry, alone in a desert under the fire sun of july._

### The Sun, the Moon and their Eclipse, pt. II

Mark has a novel to write and a very well-known editor to keep happy in exchange for a pay to cover rent and maybe one day the paint to pour over his bedroom’s water stain. This is something he knows, ground to work with, a path to walk with the pride of those who’ve given up a life for one of another kind—and yet, whenever he opens his laptop, Mark is forced to come across a blank document slowly filling with garbage that stares at him like blood under nails and clear fingerprints after a most violent crime: accusingly, proof of his failure, reassurement of his every fear.

Because Mark Lee, painful as it is for him to admit, has never been a good writer. Maybe he wasn’t even a writer to begin with, just a guy with a notebook and a pen and a friend who wanted to help, like a parent who believes in his child so blindly he cannot see all his faults, cannot see how there are certain things that are impossible—

“But Mark,” Donghyuck interrupts him, the frown on his face doing nothing to lessen the beauty of his features, refreshing like a storm on a summer day, “I searched for it, you know, and your book sold like, a mad amount of copies.”

“I mean,” Mark flushes bright red, eyes leaving Donghyuck’s face to focus the label tag peeling off his beer bottle with condensation, “I told you Ten is an editor in a very big publishing firm. It’s only because of that.”

Donghyuck raises an eyebrow, mouth twisted to the left as he tries to catch Mark’s gaze again. “I truly have no idea but, I don’t think that’s how bookselling works? People buy books if they’re good, they don’t care about editors.”

“Yeah, well, but the statistics show—”

“You’re not gonna convince me otherwise,” Donghyuck cuts him off, reclining back into the booth after sipping on his cocktail, “You’re gonna give me a signed copy of your book and I’m going to keep saying you’re a good writer even if it sucks, and I’m sure it _won’t_. Now keep talking.”

—And Mark, too, for better or for worse, also has one of his only two ( _three_ , if he is to count Donghyuck in there) friends in the very same editor he works with: Lee Ten, who calls him when he least expects it to ask and worry about how he is doing first and to talk about the draft of his next novel he sent last night second.

 _“Look, Mark,”_ Ten says right after he brings up the topic of Mark’s first draft, _“I know it’s supposed to be a rough first sketch and all but, I’m gonna be honest alright?”_ And so Mark readies himself for yet another blow to the fragile walls he’s so much struggled to bring up around himself, _“This manuscript, just—it gives off the feeling that you’re not even trying this time, you know? And that makes me so sad, Markie, because—I know you’re struggling and going to therapy and all, and you know I’ll support you through everything, but I need you to start working on believing in yourself and your ability to write a little or else this is going to be a disaster. And I do not want it to be a disaster, cause you’re great and you deserve everything you’ve worked for, so keep working, okay? Send me something else, keep building it, I don’t know, just. Please.”_

Mark agrees, because there is no other thing left for him to say—for there are not enough words of apology written in the dictionary for him to excuse himself before the poor man tasked with keeping up with his inability to exist in peace doing the thing he’s forever been dreaming with—, and when Ten ends the call and he is left alone with his thoughts once again in the prison of his room, Mark knows he needs to do something other than mull over his every word and cry himself to sleep; and so he texts Donghyuck two minutes before Johnny sends him a text offering to write together eating pizza like they used to in the good old days, and it feels freeing and it feels wrong but in the end it _feels_ like something worth to be written on a poem or a song—

“—Because you help me somehow, Donghyuck, please don’t freak out! You’re just, you know, like an _outsider_ to that mess and sometimes… sometimes I just need air. I haven’t gotten air in years, man. It’s bound to be exhausting.”

“Oh, tell me about it,” Donghyuck sighs when he leans forward once again, elbows pressed to the table and hands holding his drink when Mark finally dares to look at him in the eye, “You don’t have to excuse yourself for needing a rest, Mark. I mean, look at this goddamn place. We all do.”

“Yeah but,” Mark sighs, scratching at the back of his head for the sake of doing something with his hands, “I don’t… I shouldn’t be like this, Donghyuck, and tell me if you think I’m telling you too much but—I think I should be happy because being a writer was my lifelong dream, shouldn’t I? But I’m not. I’m so not, doesn’t it suck?”

Donghyuck stays quiet for a moment, studying the sad slope of Mark’s mouth and then more, until he rewards Mark’s honesty with a little hum and a hand reaching across the space between them to hold his wrist in a mimic of the gesture Mark did the night when they first met. “It sucks,” Donghyuck gives, a sympathetic smile on his beautiful face, “but sometimes dreams are not like we believed they would turn out to be. That is something I’ve also had to deal with.”

“Yeah,” Mark sighs, fingertips caressing at the soft skin between Donghyuck’s own index and thumb, “This stupid dream took away everything I ever thought there would be. I guess that does say quite a lot about it.”

They both fall silent for a moment, and Mark feels it to be an oddly intimate moment for a place as public as the one where they sit, the pads of his fingers drawing nameless shapes over the back of Donghyuck’s palm. “Maybe this is just how things were supposed to be, you know. They usually say things happen for a reason and all that,” Donghyuck shrugs after a short while, and Mark knows he doesn’t believe the words himself but takes them if only because this is a conversation he wants to be over with soon.

But Donghyuck is not done. He keeps gnawing at his bottom lip for a moment before asking softly, as if words were weightless enough not to break Mark’s ribs with their force, the one question for which Mark has not found an answer yet. “So, what happened with your girlfriend?”

And there is nothing in the world Mark would want more than to know _what_ it was.

So far, the only thing he knows is the _how_ ; the way he woke up one day feeling like the saddest boy in the world and the way it was impossible for him to feel happy again after that, no light at the end of the tunnel, no shore to be reached after a torturous trip.

Eunkyung was good and soft and gentle, and Mark loved her like he never thought he could love anyone, wanted to spend his whole life with her and die in her arms when the moment for him to perish came. He tells this to Donghyuck, who nods his head like it matters and drowns the weight of it in his drink, and Mark keeps talking because it’s the only thing he can do to stay alive once the words have been said.

Eunkyung was good, and one day Mark woke up and decided he did not deserve good, cause the light in the sky had been turned off and nothing he could do would ever be enough to heal the gash torn open in his heart by a feeling so foreign he was too scared to give it a name. And yet she endured him, brought him food and tried to be his shelter while all Mark did was try to tear down the walls, burn the blankets and the kindness and understand that there would be no way for him to keep Eunkyung suffering because of him, because there was no solution to his issues, because it was him who brewed his own personal Hell with his very two hands and let the fire swallow him whole.

“And she needed to get away from me before she burnt down with me too,” Mark mumbles, and his beer bottle is now as empty as his ribcage feels, home for a soul so shallow it might as well not be there at all. _Soul death_ , the diagnosis would have been if Mark’s therapist weren’t as kind as she is, _get ready to take his organs away_. “I wouldn’t know how to explain what happened, just that it was all me, you know? I can’t blame her. She wasn’t the cause, but the writing was. It ruined me, sad as it sounds.”

 _dawn came and ruined you, and your family and your dreams and everything you ever wanted there to be, and now you’re left alone but he’s listening and it feels like nobody’s listened to you in years_ — _he’s listening and he’s good, he’s shining, let him bring you home._

The palm of Donghyuck’s hand is warm when he wraps it around Mark’s. His brown eyes, melted caramel brimming with honey and chestnut, are shadowed by a pain that is not his to bear, and Mark wants to take it away and drown in it because Donghyuck does not deserve it—for Mark’s mistakes are only his, and he does not deserve to have a gentle boy caring about him after burying himself in a mountain of unerasable dirt. The darkness that chokes him is his to have, his to endure; his to pour over notebook pages that will never see the light because the whole world revolves around love and he can barely recall its warmth so far from the start.

But “Mark,” Donghyuck says softly, and the words are not for his ears and for his heart, “I know how it feels. Trust me, I know it, I really do, but you—I don’t think you’re in ruins. I think you’re a good person, and that every crumbled building can always be rebuilt.”

And Lee Donghyuck is an enigma, the unyielding resolve like a driving force behind his words blending in with the mute, sad secrets his eyes have always told to turn into a siren’s song, alluring and captivating and the one that is set to be written on Mark’s stone. Donghyuck is an enigma, because his smile says _“I’ve suffered”_ and his hands say _“I should have only ever known love”_ , and Mark is not supposed to like boys nor remember the kind caress of love but he wants to crawl inside Donghyuck’s body and live forever in the soothing swaying of his lungs, let his words heal him even though there are certain pieces that are always going to be missing from his heart, spoiled rotten by his own tears and the thoughts that have fought to tear him down.

Donghyuck is an enigma, impish and forbidden and exquisite and warm, and Mark wishes to spend all his life deciphering him until he knows every single one of his lines and ridges.

The thought scares him to death and shocks him back into life, adrenaline shooting through his bloodstream with the speed of a bullet aiming for the heart, and so Mark holds Donghyuck’s hand gently and tells him, “I think the same about you, you know. I already told you the first time we talked that night”; and doesn’t tell him, _“You’re so good to me and I don’t even know why you’re sitting here still.”_

Donghyuck smiles, and the clouds on the sky part and leave room for the Moon to shine right through them until she reaches their hearts, enamoured with the way sometimes stray souls find home in each other’s darkness. “You’re not the only mess in here, you know,” he chuckles, head tilting to the side as he gives Mark’s hand a little squeeze, “but you’re certainly the only one I’ve dared to like in a really long time.”

And it means something Mark does not yet know how to decode, so instead he pulls gently on Donghyuck arm until he gets the hint and walks around the table to sit on Mark’s lap, lips crashing together like the return of the prodigal son—awaited forever despite their mistakes, home in a way that makes Mark feel safe right inside the lion’s cave.

And when Donghyuck’s hands slip under his shirt to spell out the secrets he will never dare to tell, Mark closes his eyes and smiles triumphantly because he’s finally, after having forgotten about it for a lifetime, allowed to _feel_.

_kingdoms rise and fall along to the movement of his chest, and you’re alone in his throne room kneeling and wondering where will it all go wrong, if your first step could have also been your last or if the taste of your lips could ever be sweet enough for him to give up heaven for your touch._

### No sweet dream

Mark Lee is too good for what a nightmare like Donghyuck deserves.

When Donghyuck convinces him to go back to his penthouse after making out for an hour in the club, Mark agrees and fucks him face down into the mattress as hard as Donghyuck begs him to simply because the only possible thought in his head is that of indulging his every desire, and Donghyuck closes his eyes and tries to convince himself that he wouldn’t mind not knowing the identity of the man between his legs while he scratches his throat hoarse screaming out the sound of Mark’s name.

Tonight, Donghyuck comes first and then lets Mark fuck the sensitive skin of his thighs raw until he too rides out his high, grunting out Donghyuck’s name as if he hadn’t confessed to being scared of liking men two drinks ago across the table of the club; and Mark, instead of pulling up his underwear and exiting his house before Donghyuck can claw his golden heart out of the honest expanse of his chest, takes his time cleaning him up as if Donghyuck deserved gentleness and then lays next to him and proceeds to listen to Donghyuck spilling his own personal filth through his mouth until they fall asleep.

Mark Lee is too good for what a nightmare like Donghyuck deserves, because if he were to look at him through the corner of his eye, Donghyuck would see how he takes Donghyuck’s sadness as his own, lets it mingle with the already heavy stones crushing his bones and _cares_ , the very word Donghyuck had almost forgotten, the one thing he is too scared to accept from gentle hands and looks for in the arms of a different man every night.

But Donghyuck doesn’t dare to look, too prideful even in his deepest hurt, putting up a fight until the last second of the countdown. He pulls the pristine white sheet hanging loose from the bottom of the bed up to his chin until it covers his naked body from Mark’s starry eyes, and then keeps his eyes fixed on the chandelier hanging from the ceiling as he speaks because it is the only way someone as rotten as him can bear to open his walls.

“I search my name on Naver three times a week,” Donghyuck says, “and have saved searches of it on Twitter so I can keep better track of what they say,” as if exposing the reality behind his nonchalant, confident, sexy façade wasn’t the inevitable end of the concept of Donghyuck as Mark has ever known it to be, “and you might think you’re not a good writer when you _are_ and yet here I am, a model nobody likes trying to pretend there is any good in the things I do”; and doesn’t think he will ever dare to speak about Renjun and the way he took away his gentleness and his warmth and the only supporting pillar he’d ever learnt to want.

Mark listens and frowns, because there is nothing else a boy as kind and soft as him could do, and runs a gentle hand over Donghyuck’s arm under the covers as he says, “But I like you,” vulnerable and true like a stray sheep faced by a pack of wolves making its last wish, “and I think your features are incredible”; and Donghyuck doesn’t have it in himself to call him out for his lie, too tired and spent and regretful of his every past step.

“I’m sure you’ll learn to stop soon,” is the only thing he mumbles, but his hand squeezes Mark’s when their fingers brush against each other’s and that alone should be enough reason for the punishment of having it cut, “You’re too nice to me, Mark Lee.”

“I could say the same,” Mark says back, and it’s sad and real in a way Donghyuck struggles to grasp, “Do you want me to leave?”

Against his better judgement, Donghyuck squeezes harder and says, “Stay.”

_in the morning, he’s Dorian Gray; proud and selfish and too beautiful for you to stare, shines as if he were golden and heals you with his touch when you’re both entangled in bed._

_by the time night comes, he’s young Werther again; broken desires of the soul, death in slow motion—it might as well drag itself over the next ten years too._

### The palm of a hand

In the morning, Mark Lee fucks Donghyuck on the counter of his almost untouched kitchen; tells him he’s beautiful and gorgeous as if he could erase Donghyuck’s shamefully confessed insecurities by word alone, walks out of the door three minutes before Jeno can walk in on them going at it full force, and takes with him some of Donghyuck’s deepest secrets as if they bore no weight at all.

“You look tired,” Jeno says cheekily, butt propped up a meter away from the spot where Mark just finished drilling Donghyuck’s ass, “Had a fun night with that Mark guy?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Donghyuck hums back, stirring the coffee in his cup in hopes of it being bitter enough to wake him up from the dream that is to feel like a demon being worshipped by a good man, “You could’ve asked him, I’m sure you two must have crossed paths when you were coming in.”

He realizes his mistake three beats too late.

“He slept here?” Jeno asks, surprise deserving of being officially portrayed in the books as it looks painted across his handsome face, “Woah, Hyuck, are you alright?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Donghyuck is quick to snap, palms sweating around the now too warm porcelain of his mug, “Perfectly alright. Just got fucked on the counter you’re sitting on, in fact.”

By now, after a lifetime being best friends and a good handful of years as his manager, Jeno is more than used to Donghyuck’s insufferable retorting whenever he happens to bring up his personal life, yet another firewall protecting his fragile, broken heart. Still, the words come out of Donghyuck’s mouth so unexpectedly harsh that Jeno all but jumps away from the surface against which he was resting, an involuntary gasp escaping his mouth as he stares across the kitchen at Donghyuck’s pained face. “You could’ve told me before I sat on it!” Jeno whines, grimacing as he tries to look behind his back to see if he’s stained his jeans.

“You’re all fine,” Donghyuck snorts out a laugh, bringing his coffee to his lips and taking a long gulp just so he can watch Jeno struggling a little bit more, “It’s not like it was right where you sat, I’m not that mean.”

“Whatever,” Jeno scoffs, and when Donghyuck meets his eyes he sees that, despite his futile attempt at drawing the attention elsewhere, the time for seriousness has finally come. “So you’ve slept with the same guy twice. In less than a week.”

“He’s a good fuck,” Donghyuck says as nonchalantly as he can, set on not letting his walls crumble one more time after his heart-to-heart with Mark the night prior.

“And of course you’ve been texting him all this time only because he’s a good fuck,” Jeno presses, eyebrows arched expectantly before Donghyuck decides to start pacing around the kitchen just for the sake of unnerving him.

“Maybe it’s him who’s been texting me,” he shrugs.

“Then you’ve been replying to him, which is unheard of,” Jeno shoots back, rotating on his feet clockwise so he can keep facing Donghyuck even as he walks around barefoot over the tiled ground, “Just like the fact that you’ve seen him again and let him spend the night here.”

“Have you thought that maybe I wanted him to fuck me awake today? I’ve been dying to do it in the kitchen—”

“That’s the worst lie you’ve come up with in a long time, Donghyuck, can you at least _try_?”

“But why do you care?” Donghyuck finally breaks, exhaustion pulling down at the corners of his lips as he finally faces Jeno, exasperated as he puts his mug down on the marble counter a bit too harshly, “What does it matter if I text him, what does it matter if he sleeps here? It doesn’t mean a single thing, Jeno.”

Jeno stares at him for a moment, silent as he studies over Donghyuck tired face and taut muscles, and not for the first time Donghyuck feels himself as if exposed inside a museum display case, open for the whole world to observe and try to pick apart at his pieces. It’s been too long since he last gave up on trying to preserve his life for himself—back when Renjun left and took away the fear of people talking badly about Donghyuck’s relationship with the man he loved—, because being in the spotlight means everybody’s going to talk and think they get to decide what you should and shouldn’t do.

And if Donghyuck still cared, he would be _terrified_ of being caught at the club kissing men when it could very well ruin his whole career, he wouldn’t dare bring a single person back to his penthouse in fear of people commenting on his choices and talking about him as if he were a doll for them to play with. But Donghyuck likes to pretend he doesn’t because four years hiding away a love greater than the size of his body left him too tired and too void, and so he lives a little bit recklessly and pushes his tongue down random boys’ throats and convinces himself that he wouldn’t mind about what people could say about him after spending an hour sobbing in the backseat of his car before he’s due for makeup for yet another photoshoot, the brightness of his phone screen set on low once he’s done reading through the latest searches of his name on his secret social media account.

But then Jeno smiles, soft and warm because he is Jeno and the one person who’s never left Donghyuck’s side despite his evident destructive tendencies and his affinity for sucking the life out of those who dare get close to him, and his voice is kind and gentle and heart-wrenchingly honest when he speaks. “It matters because you’re glowing, Donghyuck. I hadn’t seen you smile like you were doing when I walked in in a long, long time,” and he is so careful and yet so honest that the truth strikes him like lightning and leaves Donghyuck gasping for air, overwhelmed under the tender caress that is this reminder of Jeno caring about his well-being.

Jeno notices, because he and Jaemin know him better than Donghyuck could ever dream to know himself, and the hand he clasps down on his shoulder is an anchor to Earth and the push of blowing wind against his sailing ship. “Listen, I’m not saying all this to mess with you, okay? I’m just happy you’re… excited about something. Reminds me of better days.”

“It’s not like that,” Donghyuck babbles uselessly, and all the bite is gone from his tone, “He’s just—he’s different. Interesting.”

“And I’m so glad he is,” Jeno grins, watching Donghyuck try to shrug away the vulnerability that comes from being read so easily, “as long as you’re happy, Hyuck.”

“Yeah,” Donghyuck sighs, running a hand through his red hair as he stares at the ground, cheeks burning when his phone pings with an incoming text he already knows the sender of, “we’ll see about that.”

“I guess we will,” Jeno hums, pleased, and then turns around to pick Donghyuck’s discarded mug and put it inside the dishwasher. “Now go shower, you have the fittings for the next runway in two hours and we’re so not going to be late! And I hope those nasty bruises on your neck are gone by next week, cause the makeup artist is going to be _oh-so-pleased_ if they’re still there on the day of the show.”

Donghyuck giggles as he gives Jeno the middle finger, and he realizes it’s the first time he’s done so without Mark around in a long while. He knows better than to delude himself into thinking that the ugly things inside his bloodstream are being fixed like this, because if he did then the fall would hurt a million times worse, but when he stands under the scorching hot stream of his shower, the only thought in his head is that of wanting to see Mark again.

And it feels like a claiming of sorts.

_sometimes i wonder what it’d be like to get your heart touched by kind hands, to feel warmth, to feel love._

_i believe i once knew about it, the way it made me feel as if i were on the top of the world, but now—i’ve seemingly just forgot._

### The great perhaps

For as much as Mark clearly struggles with accepting the fact that he’s attracted to him, he makes no effort to stop Donghyuck’s lips from searching his every single time they meet over the course of the following weeks.

Donghyuck listens to him—over a different cocktail every time and on the same side of his bed when they go back home together every night, if only because Mark speaks with his heart out beating on the palm of his hand as if Donghyuck wouldn’t snatch it from him and eat it whole if he let down his guard—talk about how he’s always been taught that liking girls is natural and that God had sure left his side the second he first tasted Donghyuck’s tongue, and even though he doesn’t understand devotion professed towards the invisible, Donghyuck nods his head because struggling is something he himself is too familiar with to deny.

It’s not as if liking—as if being attracted to Mark is something Donghyuck is able to accept with a smile and a calm mind. God is, thankfully enough, not at the top of Donghyuck’s list of worries, and while the fear of getting caught with his arms around a man is something he’s already learnt to live with, it is the way Mark Lee makes a place for himself in the mess that is Donghyuck’s daily routine that scares him to death—and how natural it feels to let him in, let him take a little peek inside, just shy past the thick walls of his shielded heart.

Mark has fears, some of which might run as deep as Donghyuck’s own do. It’s in the middle ground where they meet, armour half discarded, heartbeat kicking almost in sync. There’s no glory to be attained by those who’ve made out of their living their own personal Hell, but when Mark lets Donghyuck touch him and bring him a piece of Heaven to Earth—it all seems worth it, so they do not stop.

Texting daily turns into meeting, always at the club, often enough for Donghyuck to start to miss it when one of them cannot make it, for him to get so used to it he doesn’t even notice the way he’s stopped seeking for other men’s touch when he knows he can have it better—when he knows he can have Mark Lee, with his awkward gentleness and his honest laugh and his will to do anything for him as long as Donghyuck asks for it, eager to please, never afraid to stay if Donghyuck feels brave enough to let him in past the doorway of his penthouse.

Mark is good to him in ways Donghyuck knows he doesn’t deserve, treats him as if he were human and not the heartless machine the world has made out of him, and in exchange for making him deal with the mess that is Donghyuck’s head and Donghyuck’s life, he lets Mark talk to him about his worries because fairness is something Donghyuck has always wanted for everyone.

So Mark talks—speaks about his best friend Johnny and his editor Ten, about the novel he’s writing which he hates and the poems he sometimes mentions but never reveals and the way his therapist is helping him heal too slowly for his taste. And Donghyuck—he listens and tries to kiss Mark’s scars better despite knowing very well how easily soft damaged boys can crawl inside your bones and make a home in there until they decide to leave by breaking them apart; takes it all in and keeps the pieces neatly tucked behind the safe of his ribs, because Mark deserves the kindness, deserves the care, and even though Donghyuck is evil and undeserving he tries his best to provide in exchange for this fantasy he’s too scared to end.

Mark speaks about everything with a light tone and sad heart no boy with stars in his eyes should have to bear; but some nights, after Donghyuck makes him come inside him hard enough for his legs to tremble and then proceeds to tell him about his latest breakdown before a runway show, Mark will open up a little too much and mention his ex-girlfriend, the biggest bullet hole in his legacy of regrets.

Mark talks about her with the delicacy that can only come from true love—skips over the details to mention certain painful memories and yet does so with the great pain that comes from a failed perhaps; lost plans for a better life he’s no longer allowed to have. Mark tells Donghyuck about it, sometimes, about the house he’d always dreamed to have back in Canada and the honeymoon trip to Mexico he’d been so excited about, and for some reason he cannot understand, Donghyuck aches to erase her from Mark’s memories until he can replace all the pain with the glee someone so good deserves.

“And you?” Mark asks just a single time, for he’ll learn better than to trip over the same stone twice, “Don’t you have any past lovers like that? And just so you know, I’m not going to believe it if you say no.”

The question is harmless yet pointed towards the most delicate part of Donghyuck’s soul, where there’s no steel nor iron to cover up the last remnants of his barely latent heart. It is there, under the raw flesh beating red and purple with the damned blood inside his veins, that Donghyuck keeps the memories of a life that was once his; the shadow of every single thing Renjun took with him when he left, aching for his return even though Donghyuck knows it will not come.

“Maybe,” is the only thing Donghyuck replies, eyes on the ceiling while Mark’s study the curve of his nose, “It’s not something I like to talk about.”

“Oh.” Because Mark sees beyond what Donghyuck shows and understands him, and Donghyuck should hate him for making feel so bare but he doesn’t, relishes in it instead. “It’s okay. You don’t have to.”

But Donghyuck doesn’t need to speak for the memories of Renjun to flood his brain that night, for them to linger for another lifetime to come.

“Yeah,” Donghyuck hums, turning to face Mark, whose skin looks silver under the gentle lighting of the Moon, “Kiss me?”

Mark does—and it feels good and it does not, makes him forget about the painful past yet aches like a blade sheathing itself between his ribs and not letting him breathe.

_you’ve hurt who you loved yet can’t help but carry her shadow, so what do you know? in the end there is nothing, dust and wind, memories rubbing themselves thin._

_he tells you this and you kiss him—but the end of this movie is one you won’t get to film._

Weeks turn into months of seeing each other on every possible chance, and Donghyuck tries to tell himself he isn’t doing it all wrong when Mark kisses him goodbye when he leaves his house in the mornings and hello the next time they meet even though he knows himself teetering on the edge of a precipice he’s too broken for.

There was love like a light inside Donghyuck’s chest, once, burning so bright he thought himself unable to ever feel cold as long as Renjun stayed by his side.

But one day Renjun walked away, because boys like Donghyuck, broken and clingy and so easily enamoured, are doomed to be left alone after their little good leaves room for their evil to show. Renjun told him it was for the best, that Donghyuck deserved better, that they both needed to grow—but the petals on Donghyuck’s leaves were already shaped to the tastes of Renjun’s lips, and the second he closed the door behind him, Donghyuck knew there would never be anyone else who would dare to love his twisted soul, a flower growing among poisonous thorns nobody would want to push past to get through.

Donghyuck knows himself to be unlovable, a simple liability to be dealt with by those who come enchanted by his body and will always leave horrified by his mind, and in return he vows himself to never fall in love again because the great pain of loss is one he wouldn’t know how to endure twice.

Yeah, Donghyuck isn’t made to know love, and so whenever Mark Lee brings up his ex-girlfriend Donghyuck convinces himself that he wants to be the one occupying her place in Mark’s heart simply because he likes the way he fucks him, and not because he aches for his love. Mark is too good and too kind, and both are privileges Donghyuck should not be allowed to have, so he tells Mark to fuck him harder and squeeze his throat when he comes in a delirious attempt at substituting the fuzzy feelings coming from his heart with those that come with a good, rough fuck.

And even then, Mark is too good for him—because he listens to Donghyuck’s every desire and follows his every command, always willing, always enchanted, and in the end he holds him close and kisses his forehead and Donghyuck should not know love, but Mark’s kisses are a gentle reminder of a sweeter life he misses awfully and sometimes they make him wonder if he could ever try again, if broken hearts could really be amended.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t kneel for anyone,” Donghyuck hums teasingly one night, fingers tilting Mark’s chin upwards so their eyes can meet, “except God.”

“Maybe I've changed my mind,” comes Mark’s reply, strained with desire where he’s bruising his bony knees on Donghyuck’s wooden floor, “Maybe I believe you’re deserving of it now.”

Donghyuck fucks Mark’s mouth to try and erase from his memory the truth of his words because he cannot allow himself to be such a fool, because feelings have no room in a case as rotten as his own; and afterwards, when Mark’s voice is too hoarse to speak, he reads over the first of many of his poems Mark will show him—the first one he shares with anyone—, typed hastily on a note in his phone, and the Earth comes to a stop.

_but flesh does not give; it only takes, takes, takes, and you’ve already run out of power, what are you gonna do?_

And then, catharsis—like a freezing waterfall raining over Donghyuck’s head, waking him up from his self-pity induced dream and making him realize, despite the futile tries of his fragile mind, the truth he’s always been too scared to face: _he’s writing about you_ , both a death sentence and acquittal for his soul, _this good man has already stolen your heart_.

### A tank full of sharks

“You’re staring,” Donghyuck manages to say in between heavy breaths and broken moans, flushed all the way down to his chest where he’s laying on his back atop of his bed, Mark steadily pushing inside between his parted legs.

It doesn’t sound accusing nor reprimanding at all. If anything, Donghyuck looks confused, vulnerable in a way Mark had yet to see him in bed, laid bare in a position so intimate they wouldn’t have dreamed of trying when they met three months ago now. He looks lost, as if he didn’t believe himself worthy of being held in a museum for the whole world to stare, as if he hadn’t yet realized that it’s been long since Mark has wanted to look at anyone who isn’t him.

Something aches inside Mark’s chest, tugging at his heart with a melody he could barely recall before he got to know Donghyuck, so he bends down and kisses him again and then keeps lavishing his skin in hopes of making him feel as ethereal as he is.

When Mark pulls out and moves to discard the condom into the bin, he notices the way Donghyuck doesn’t tear his eyes from him, as if he were afraid that Mark would leave if he dared to blink. When he returns to the bed, grabbing tissues to clean them both hastily before he catches Donghyuck’s lips between his own again, Mark realizes this feels too much like coming home in a way he should be scared of.

Because kissing Donghyuck, laying with him amidst a pool of lust and desire and then opening up his chest for him to take shelter in, reminds Mark of the books and the movies where the main character realizes all the things he’s done wrong and how he could try to fix them all. And Mark is no protagonist, for he knows himself too much of a loser for his name to be part of a great story, but kissing Donghyuck feels like he’s finding himself despite the chaos that is his life—feels like reaching Heaven in a way he’d never felt before, as if he’d found God in a lover that’s soft and warm and braver than anyone else he’d ever known.

“Hey, Hyuckie,” Mark says a while later when they’re drawing shapes with their fingers over each other’s naked skin, hypnotised by the beautiful contrast of his pale skin against Donghyuck’s golden one, “What do you say we go out for burgers or something one of these days? Like, you know—just to take a little break from the club. The food is not that good and we’re gonna end up becoming alcoholics at this rate.

Donghyuck giggles, eyes closing into crescents moons as he rubs his nose against Mark’s, too much like a puppy for how fierce his now black hair makes him look like. “Are you telling me,” he asks, the conspiracy the theories would never dare to talk about, “that you’d like to take me on a _date_?”

Mark laughs softly, awkward in the way he knows Donghyuck is so fond of, shrugging as he says, “You can call it what you want. I’m just seriously craving a burger right now.”

Donghyuck agrees easily enough, and it should be worrying how giddy it makes him feel—but when Mark believes him to be asleep and picks up his phone to write yet another little poem that’s come to his mind, Donghyuck’s hand reaches over to grip his wrist as he maneuvers himself to straddle Mark’s hips.

The moonlight lits him untouchably bright where he bends down to hover his face above Mark’s. “You should stop waxing your pretty Christian boy poetry about someone like me,” Donghyuck whispers against his lips, the fire kiss of a seraphim burning home on Mark’s red abused skin. “You and I, Mark Lee—we won’t be standing on the same side before Him, in the times of the Apocalypse.”

_in my dreams your hands are soft and gentle when they reach over to hold me and every time i wake up thinking what would it take for you to take me — if it’s me who’s too weak for your weapons or if it’s you who would never dare shred your light over my damned shadow — and when i wake up it hurts less than it does_

_every time i do it next to you._

### Found Him in a lover

Mark’s got Donghyuck in his mind and his own hand around his cock when Ten calls.

“Shit,” he squeaks, covering himself up quickly as if Ten had personified himself in his room through the ringtone, and his left hand is shaky when it grabs his phone to answer. “Uh, hey!”

“Are you okay?” He can tell Ten is frowning on the other side, undoubtedly curious about the way he sounds out of breath, “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Mark is quick to say, wiping his right hand on the sheets with a grimace and making a mental note to throw them into the washing machine later, “What’s up?”

“You sound weird,” Ten pushes, then drops the topic for an even less pleasant one, “You should know what’s up. I’m still waiting for that draft we talked about, Mark. It was due two weeks ago.”

“Ah.”

The novel is bound to be the last stone thrown at Mark’s broken bricks—the one that will send him crumbling, turn him into debris that will never be repaired again.

Naming his second original potential publication _The 7th Sense_ has probably been the only good choice Mark has made about it, for he doesn’t really know where he’s taking the strength from to keep working on drafts that are bound to nothing but disappoint. Objectively, Mark knows he deserves Ten’s reprimanding. After all, he’s not proud of the words he vomits over the damned document on his laptop, no scheme to be followed and no passion behind the sentences he takes great pain to write.

Mark is not a good writer, no matter what Johnny or Donghyuck or his fucking therapist say, and Ten should’ve noticed it sooner if he wanted to spare himself the hassle of dealing with the mess that is Mark’s life.

“Yeah, _ah_ ,” Ten sighs heavily, and Mark forgets about being turned on and everything else, really, as he curls up in a ball and begs the heavens to make him disappear. “Look, I get it if you don’t wanna talk to me about what’s bothering you or whatever, Mark, but we’ve got a contract. And like, dude, I’m covering up for you as much as I can, but the company isn’t mine, you know? You need to start taking things seriously or else something bad is going to happen.”

“Is that a threat?” Mark knows it’s not, but he’s too tired to pretend he’s going to change and his head aches with the unbearable weight of responsibility.

“You know it’s _not_.” Ten slams something down a surface—his desk, probably, always filled with piled up papers stained with words better than what Mark could ever dream to write. “I just want you to realize what you’re risking here! I told you, you don’t have to talk to me about it, but man, tell Johnny or just _someone_ who can help you get on the right track again. This novel is… From your last draft I can tell it’s much darker than what _Mad City_ was, and I get it if you struggle while writing it but really, you can’t throw all your hard work away like this.”

“Then tell me what you want me to write, Ten,” Mark sighs, fingers massaging at his forehead, “Just tell me. I’m too tired for anything else.”

“I want you to write what you _want_ to write,” Ten says, exasperated, “and to take it seriously because it’s your _job_.”

“I told you I wanted to write poems and you—”

“And I said you _can’t_ write poems, so forget about it! I’m giving you a week, Mark Lee. Send me that fucking draft or _else_.”

Being hung up on with words sizzling on the tip of his tongue is something Mark has gotten awfully used to. He pushes his phone under his pillow and buries his face in it next, pressing so hard against the fabric that he’s sure the creases are going to be marked on his cheeks when he pulls back for air.

His phone vibrates with an incoming call then, probably from Johnny, and he does his best to ignore it as he stares up at the ceiling, heart rate spiking up inside his chest.

If anyone told Mark three months ago that he would be struggling to write a novel plagued by sad, dark themes, he would’ve laughed on their faces because there had been no other things inside him he could have possibly chosen to write about. The inside of Mark’s mind is a dark place—obscure hallways and decrepit walls with room for nothing but his pity and his regrets—, and Mark is sad. His therapist says he suffers from depression and impostor syndrome, and Mark believes him because he’s too tired to tell him otherwise and tries his best to stop being sad even though he just can’t.

But then, like a beacon of light amidst the most violent storm, Donghyuck—and his hands and his smile and the way he makes room for Mark’s pain amidst his own and tries to take it away, how he listens and then shares and lets Mark see behind walls he doesn’t think anyone else has dared to venture past. And Mark is still sad—misses his dreams and his will to live and everything he built with Eunkyung and all the friends he no longer has—, but Donghyuck is there now and, for the first time in a long, long while, he makes Mark want to write about something bright and gentle, hope like a candlelight, forgiveness despite sin, love like he’d never thought himself able to feel again after knowing his life in ruins after all his wrongdoings.

Donghyuck shines brighter than the Sun—warm and yellow, comforting in a way that scared Mark at the start and that makes him crave more every day that goes by, despite the fragility of it all, despite the way he knows all good things in life are doomed to end for everyone; and so he aches to touch him and be consumed by his fire, eternal burning welcomed like a healing balm, redemption for his crimes in the form of a human he dares to want despite all his flaws.

And Mark knows it’s a damned fate, has always known because he’s seen it and suffered from it first hand, but he’d been so used to loneliness that having someone else apart from Johnny being there to support him feels _massive_ , cataclysmic in a way that sends him down a sloped road with no brakes to hit—and before he can notice he’s written it all over the ink shaping his secret poems, the ones he holds dearest to his heart.

_And your body — it just takes_

_And your eyes — they look at me and beg_

_And they tell me — help me,_

_save me,_

_take me far away from this place_

_And so I — fall_

_endlessly_

_down your path_

_(I think I’ll love you all my life)_

### Swallowed by the Sun

Donghyuck only really notices it when they go for a picnic by Han River on a warm spring day, choosing a spot mostly hidden from view to sit down and eat and bask in each other’s company.

The nature of the plan, one to which he has tried not to spare many thoughts these past days, is undeniably clear, and yet he’d followed through because he had so badly wanted to believe that Mark wouldn’t commit that mistake, that he wouldn’t fall down the hole when he could very well have stayed Donghyuck’s dearest friend.

But when he lays down on the grass once they’re done going through their sandwiches and laughing at their silly jokes, his head on Mark’s lap as he gets ready to do nothing but stare at the clouds sailing across the sky for hours, Donghyuck finally sees in clear daylight the way Mark looks at him—as if there was nobody else in the world but him, as if Donghyuck had hung on the sky all the stars that shine in his eyes, as if he doesn’t want to do anything but look and touch and smile at him for the rest of his life.

It’s all written in the gentle curve of Mark’s smile, in the way his cheeks hollow around the glee brewing inside his chest, in the way his eyes tell tales of undying care and honest love as they meet Donghyuck’s under the caress of the soft breeze and he says, “Spring looks good on you, Hyuck-ah.”

It’s all exposed in the way Donghyuck’s cheeks redden with a flush that comes not from shame but delight, in the way he feels more comfortable when he’s touching Mark than he’s felt in years, in the way he’s made out of this poet damned into novel writer his safest place on Earth.

It’s all doomed in the way Mark Lee deserves much better than what Donghyuck has to offer, in the way he could never give a heart as pure and golden and full of the things Donghyuck lacks the love it’s worthy of, in the way there is a hurricane wreaking havoc inside Donghyuck’s chest that makes him unable to accept the inconceivable reality that he can be _loved_.

“You’re too good to me,” is the only thing Donghyuck can say, ribcage shaking with the thrumming of his pulse against delicate bones, “you really, really are.”

But Mark simply chuckles and uses the fingers of his right hand to push a stray strand of Donghyuck’s bleached blonde hair away from his head, the touch lingering on the moles today visible on his cheeks for a second too long, and it’s more intimate than any of the times Donghyuck has swallowed down his dick could have ever been. “I’m not. You deserve much better than this, and still.”

Donghyuck turns his head and kisses the palm of Mark’s hand just so he can render him silent, so he can hice his burning face from the world.

Because he wants—and he shouldn’t, because he already knows how all the stories end, and the pain and the sorrow are his lifelong friends he does not ever want to meet again.

_Wanting is the doom of mankind; greed is a sin, that you know, but oh—how delicious it is, to take until you’re sated, chest blooming under the promise of the impossible._

And so the downfall of Donghyuck’s gentlest, safest, most healing unnamed kind of relationship goes like this: he and Mark go back to his penthouse when the Sun sets down the horizon line, hand in hand with no words to be said about it because Donghyuck doesn’t think they’d know how to explain; and when they make it to his room, clothes discarded all over the ground and lips wet and messy with shared spit, there’s a hand around Donghyuck’s neck, making his eyes droopy with the delirious feeling that comes with well-calculated oxygen loss, and ragged breathing against his ear, wordless sounds that take the shape of a demon bigger than any other he’s ever encountered before. With a paused, almost hazy blink of the eyes, Donghyuck wonders what it would take for the wall he’s pressed up against to open up and swallow him whole; concrete parting pliantly under the desperate cry of a broken soul, taking away all the pain and the greed and the desires he’s destined to miss and leaving behind nothing but ecstacy of the kind he adores the most and no guilt to chase him to the end of the world.

Unconsciously, Donghyuck thinks he too would make a good poet, if he often didn’t only find the words in moments like these—when Mark Lee gets so close to his core it feels as if he could eat it whole but then doesn’t, simply chooses to keep it safe under the careful touch of his hands as if Donghyuck were the treasure he’s spent a lifetime searching the oceans for.

“Will you—” Donghyuck almost wheezes, when the fingers pressing down on the sides of his neck let up, chapped lips hovering over his swollen own in a prophecy of a crestfallen kiss— “Will you still write about me, once you get rid of me?”

A pained expression makes a frugal pass through Mark’s face at the words. It only lasts for a short fraction of a second, but Donghyuck already knows it will stay engraved on the back of his retine forever; proof of his wrongdoings, yet another thread to which to cling on the darkest nights, the sword he’s run through Mark’s weakest spot if only because he knows how much he laments what happened with his ex-girlfriend, if only because he’s gone straight to draw blood.

But Mark doesn’t say anything. He just kisses Donghyuck like he means it, as if he could change his heart through act alone, as if words were not a tangible enough vehicle for what he wishes Donghyuck to feel even though he will never be allowed to.

And Donghyuck wants to pretend it’s all fine, for he understands loss better than anyone, after all. But when he feels Mark’s tears sliding down his neck when he fucks him into the mattress a few moments later, he fears to have already fallen, fears that it’s already too late to remove from his side the bones of a boy so good he’s already melted with his own soul.

“Mark,” Donghyuck cries out when he comes, hard inside the hot grip of his hand, muscles trembling while tears spill down his cheeks unwantedly—as they silently say, in their cool slide, _this is where you’ve ruined it_ ; as they scratch down his chest and tell the tale of how he still hasn’t learnt to stop harming people—despite being offered a second chance that’s sweeter than the first could have ever been, despite being made to feel as if walking upon Heaven with nothing asked in return—, especially those who he,

loves.

### Fading fire

“Alright, Donghyuck,” Jaemin speaks up, cutlery clinking against his plate as he sets it down on the table halfway through his home cooked meal, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Huh?” Donghyuck startles, eyes wide as he stares over at his friend like a deer caught in the headlights. Next to Jaemin, also halting his eating to look at Donghyuck, Jeno’s got the kind of look on his face that speaks of concern—mouth twisted in a sad scowl and eyes dripping with worry—, and Donghyuck notices how this expression was once one he was way too used to and yet how foreign it looks to him now. Some things are better left unexplained. “What do you mean? Did I do something?”

“No,” Jaemin sighs, left elbow resting on the table as he brings the fingers of said hand to his forehead, stroking over his eyebrows as if he could make a headache disappear just like that, “but you’re being—I don’t know, weird. Too silent. You haven’t smiled once nor told us _anything_ that isn’t work.”

“What do you want me to do? I’m busy, you know.” Donghyuck knows what Jaemin means—how could he not, when he’s Jeno’s other half, the only other person besides his manager that still cares about him in the whole entire world. He knows, and so he tries desperately to move the attention elsewhere, to spare himself from this conversation that is bound to be yet another hit of the shovel making room for his already dead heart in the graveyard.

“I know you are,” Jaemin shakes his head, and he’s always careful with his words around Donghyuck in a way that makes him feel like a kid being coddled by his parents, that makes out of the home Jaemin and Jeno share the shelter he seeks during the worst of tempests, “but lately you’d been doing better. You can’t tell us otherwise.”

“Yeah,” Jeno adds, and Donghyuck hates that someone as kind as him has been tasked with the punishment of dealing with Donghyuck’s every step and regret, “You’ve been off for the last couple weeks, Hyuck. You didn’t even want to come over for lunch last Sunday… and I don’t mean to intrude, you know we would never—we just want you to be alright, okay? But if it’s—”

“What,” Donghyuck mumbles, and his voice trembles like it only does when he’s on the border of a breakdown, when the world becomes too heavy for him to hold up and he tries to pick up the pieces before they’re scattered around yet one again. It’s always in vain. “About Mark? Is that what you were going to say?”

“Donghyuck, don’t get so defensive, we just—”

“No, cause it’s fine. Yes, it’s about Mark, something happened, and so what?” Thorns get stuck in his throat as he pours out the words, laced with his black blood and the molten greed that’s seeded on his bones. “What do you want me to say, that I fucked it all up again? That I haven’t been answering his texts nor his calls for the past two weeks, that I don’t think I’ll ever see him again? What will it change?”

“But why?” Jaemin asks, and sometimes Donghyuck hates that, despite how the whole world loves to pick him apart to critique and comment on his every flaw and word, not even his best friends are able to see past his his skin to read what is written on his insides—that not even them can see how jagged and twisted he is, how he is undeserving of nice things, how it all was bound to be ruined because that is what leeches like him do to good people: drain them until taking more would mean too much then stop, lips dripping with blood. “Why’d you do that? You’ve—you were so happy these past months, Hyuck, I’ve told Jeno about this. I hadn’t seen you being so… _yourself_ since long before the Renjun incident happened, so what happened that made you want to stop it?”

And Donghyuck wants to laugh—because _nothing_ happened except for the fact that he knows Mark Lee has fallen in love with him and now he can’t allow himself to be caught in his web, even if it’s too late, even if he’s already tied up; because the only thing that’s come to stand between them is Donghyuck’s lack of self-esteem and the way he cannot allow himself to keep a boy so good all to himself, not when there’s so many good people out there that could make Mark forget about the demons eating away at Donghyuck’s soul.

And Donghyuck wants to cry—because it was Huang Renjun that left him in pieces and he hasn’t dared to tell Mark Lee about it, yet he’s leaving him because of it; because there are certain things Donghyuck doesn’t trust himself to say simply cause they would render him bare, flesh for everyone to chew then spit out, poisonous to his last cell, and yet Mark had wanted him and loved him as if he were holy and Donghyuck _knows_ he is never going to meet anyone like him again, so awkward and so smart and so broken yet put together in the most elegant of ways; and he knows Mark, too, would eventually grow tired of him, because if Renjun did and if Mark himself fell out of love with his _fucking fiancée_ what would there be to stop him from pushing Donghyuck away?

“I happened,” is Donghyuck’s only reply before he’s pulling back his chair from the table, legs scratching against the wooden floor violently, “You know I’m better off alone, and that he’ll find someone much better soon enough. Thank you for the meal.”

“Donghyuck, wait—”

But he doesn’t wait. The slam he gives to Jeno and Jaemin’s front door is enough to rattle its frame, leave the core of his own soul trembling in the cold.

It’s not, however, loud enough to drown the pinging of his phone where it’s pressed into his pocket nor the unbearable weight of the words that are written on the text he’s just received, yet another one to add to his growing list of unopened messages on the one conversation he’d never wanted to end.

 **onyourm__ark:** _i guess you’re not gonna reply but maybe at least let me know if you’re alright?? i’m kinda worried,,,, please take care. miss you._

Alright. Donghyuck doesn’t think he will ever be again, after knowing himself destined to reject good things, so he climbs into his car and drives away until he gets lost for a few hours before daring to return home—tries to will himself into being swallowed away by the Sun as it sets down the horizon, and at that, he fails too.

_how many days in average would i need to shred all my skin, to make sure you’ve never touched me, to wash away all the sin your lips have stained on me._

### Memories of someone’s life

“You still haven’t gotten rid of that water stain.”

Johnny stands under the doorframe to Mark’s bedroom in a hoodie and sweatpants, dark bags under his eyes and hair matted down with sweat—and even like that, he looks much more put together than Mark could ever dream himself to. Worry seeps its way into the small crinkles by Johnny’s eyes, proof of a sleepless night and a knot in his chest Mark knows to be engraved with his name, another thing for him to lament.

It seems like the recurrent theme of his life—making the people he loves worry, then watch them slip away through his fingertips, ungraspable like water flowing down the river stream, never his to have in the first place.

“I painted over it a while ago,” Mark mumbles into his pillow, curled up under a thick blanket because he is always cold even though the May sun keeps warming up his house, “It just came through again.”

“I told you painting wouldn’t fix it, dude, there must be something wrong behind the wall,” Johnny sighs, finally venturing himself into the room to sit down on the edge of Mark’s mattress. The conversation looks innocent enough, domestic in a way that is no longer strange to Mark after having known Johnny for far too long, but it is because Mark knows him that he can see there is something else behind; something he was hoping to avoid, the one thing he thought himself able to get away without speaking a word about. “Okay, you’re not gonna tell me, are you? I’m gonna have to pull it out?”

“Tell you what?” As if Mark hadn’t refused to leave his bed for the past week and a half, as if he hadn’t been avoiding Johnny’s calls and blatantly ignoring Ten’s emails and skipping on his therapy sessions, as if his fridge wasn’t empty because he cannot find the strength to drag himself over to the convenience store to buy some food, as if his notebook wasn’t filling up with poetry darker than his own soul while the end of the shitty novel sitting in his drafts takes the most tragic of turns.

_have you ever been scared of closing your eyes in fear of what you’ll dream? has the memory of a boy no longer yours ever haunted you for so long that you often forget what was true and what was not, if the way he touched your arm as if you were a treasure worth protecting was real or made-up fact? if you haven’t then you’re lucky, and if you have—then you’re not, because the pain of waking up, baby, is one we both will have to share for a lifetime to come._

“Tell me what the hell is going on, Mark. We’ve been here before,” Johnny says, strong and resilient where Mark lets himself be washed away by the tide, anchor set into stone, “You know I love you. I’m here for you, man.”

“I know,” Mark’s voice is small as he tries to force himself to speak, chest tight with anguish, ribs crying with an anxious ache, “I love you too.”

Johnny’s eyes are always kind and his hands are always warm when they reach over to grip Mark’s shoulders, trying to ease him into sitting up on his mattress as if he were incapable of moving on his own—and maybe he is, fossilized into this cocoon of sadness that wants nothing but to eat him whole. “Then tell me what’s wrong? It’s harder to help you if you don’t.”

 _Everything is wrong_ , Mark wants to say, because the Sun stopped coming out the last time he stepped outside of Lee Donghyuck’s home and he fears he’ll never get to see it again, doomed for his sins to forever be cold like the souls agonizing in Dante’s inferno, paying for his lust and his pride and his gluttony and his greed. _Everything is wrong_ , because it is his fault that Donghyuck had run away when Mark had put the weight of his own sadness on shoulders as gentle as his, laying duty on a boy who’d only ever wanted to help him despite the severity of his own struggles, who deserved someone who could love him better than what Mark had shown—who was on his every right to doubt him after all the harm Mark has done, who’s done good in escaping his claws before Mark can hurt him too.

 _Everything is wrong_ , because Mark didn’t believe himself able to ever like a man and yet he’s fallen in love with one, so utterly enamored that he’s sick with it, every centimeter of distance between them hurting like a sword with grown teeth slicing through his liver every morning come.

“I,” Mark tries, and the words taste of ash when they die on his tongue, “I’m, I’d—I met someone. When we—at the club, you know.”

“Alright,” Johnny hums, eyes on his knees and not on Mark because he knows him better than the palm of his own hand and knows it to be the only way to get him to talk, “I had figured.”

“You did?” Mark startles, eyes wide open, but Johnny simply snorts humorlessly and nods his head for him to continue. “Anyways, it was—I don’t know how to explain, really. It was real quick? Like, one second I was terrified of the way he stared at me and the next all I wanted was to take care of him and before I realized we—”

“Wait, he?” It is Johnny’s turn to gasp, turning to face Mark with his jaw almost dropping open as he takes in the words, “Mark. Why—dude, why didn’t you tell me, this is—”

“Listen, I know, alright? I know,” Mark grunts, face buried in his hands as he tries to hide himself from the world, shame licking at his cheekbones with fiery force, “It—I was scared. Really, and not of you or anything, just—you know how it is for me. I just couldn’t, I didn’t want to like him but he’s just… Dude, he’s incredible, like, for real. He’s sweet and he’s funny and he’s gentle and he’s such a goddamn tease, and he makes me feel like it’s all worth it and like I can _do_ things, and before I could notice I was addicted.”

“That’s,” Johnny is rarely at a loss of words, fluent in language in a way that goes beyond simple speaking and teeters on the mastery he displays on his every manuscript, but right now he looks as lost as ever and Mark doesn’t know if he should feel proud that he’s managed to surprise someone even in his decadent state or if he should cry because he’s hidden something big from his very best friend. “Woah, Markie. That’s good, I’m so—I’m a little bit in shock right now, but I’m so fucking happy, like, man! That’s great, and—”

“No,” Mark cuts him off before he can get his hopes up, bitter and broken and ready to break down if Johnny dares to say anything else beyond that point, “It’s not great. It’s horrible, in fact.” And because he owes him an explanation, Mark swallows down all his pain and his regrets and speaks the words that have been tearing apart the badly glued pieces of his heart for the past few weeks. “I’m in love with him, hyung. I’m in love with him and he’s gone, and there’s nothing I can do to fix it because it’s what he should have done from the start. I’m bad and he knows because I’ve told him, and he told me I would end up getting rid of him because maybe that’s what I’m cursed to do, aren’t I? So what can I do, when he deserves so much better? Huh?”

“What the fuck, Mark—” Johnny says through gritted teeth, adamant as ever on defending him from his own demons as if Mark didn’t eat dinner with them every night— “You’re not bad, what even are you talking about! Dude, you’re a sad kid but you’re literally the best person I’ve ever met, honest! You gotta stop tearing yourself down and—”

“But he’s gone, hyung,” Mark sighs, shaking his head in accepted defeat and bringing his knees back to his chest, curled into a ball so small he wishes he could simply disappear down a black hole, “He won’t talk to me, and I know that even if I look for him he won’t want to see me. It’s over and all I have left is a novel I hate and the stupid poems nobody but him wanted to read.”

Johnny’s arms are iron steel hard when they wrap around his middle, and Mark is startled for a second as he’s brought to the elder’s chest as if he weighed nothing, crushed into a hug so tight and caring it’s almost enough to draw the tears out of his eyes. “Fuck, Mark,” Johnny mumbles, and his voice comes out thick with barely-concealed emotion, “You’re such a prodigy, so fucking talented and _so good_ , you have no idea how much it hurts to know you’re suffering because you don’t see yourself that way.”

“Hyung—”

“No, listen to me,” and Mark does because he’s got no one else if not Johnny—because he is his family and his friends and his ship and his shore, the only wall he can rely on to stand, shelter from the acid rain, “Poetry, right? That’s what you want.” Mark could argue that there is _nothing_ he wants anymore, except for maybe the ocean to swallow him and spit him back out clean of his stains or Donghyuck to knock on his door and tell him he’ll try to accept his tragically fated love, but he nods his head because Johnny is safe and safety is the only thing his agonizing heart needs today. “Show it to me, then. Show me your poetry and tell me about this boy and let it all out. Feel it all, okay? Let me be there for you.”

Mark sniffles, nose already runny even before the moment when he will inevitably start crying arrives, but he hums a little noise of agreement and goes to stand up on shaky feet, blanket draped over his bony shoulders as he tilts his head towards the doorway. “Let’s sit on the couch? It’ll be comfier.”

Johnny nods, concerned eyes stuck on the back of Mark’s head as he follows him outside when he finally asks, “Can you tell me his name, at least? So I know who to curse on and all that.”

“Lee Donghyuck,” Mark chuckles dryly, voice hoarse from the effort it takes not to break down right in the middle of his living room, at the way Johnny’s breath hitches in his throat, “He’s a model.”

“Oh my God, are you serious? Of course he is!” Johnny groans, hand stroking his forehead as he sits down and stares ahead at the turned off TV, “What a guy to have your gay awakening with, dude! He’s fucking pretty.”

“Yeah,” Mark sighs, chest tight as he thinks of how many things in Donghyuck are much more beautiful than his incredibly pretty face, “he is.”

Later that afternoon, once Johnny has made sure Mark eats some of the food Ten himself packed especially for him with the utmost care while they both curl together on the plush couch in his awfully small living room, Mark will share with Johnny his notebook filled with all the poems Donghyuck and Eunkyung and he and Johnny himself have somehow inspired, warm tears cutting through his skin when they stream down his cheeks as he tries to explain the feelings behind the words, to point out the feeblest details that make up a world of pain and starcrossed hope; and all along, Lee Donghyuck is the one behind the unbearable pain that makes white noise deafen his ears, that makes his jaw set so hard his whole neck goes stiff wich ache as he cries, teeth ground so tight together he fears they’ll break.

Mark opens up to Johnny yet another rusted door kept hidden at the back of his chest, one that guards the key to the way he still feels things despite the numbness and the void that took over his life on a time far from today; and in return, he is told the unbelievable story of how Johnny kept a secret from the whole world the fact that he, too, chased his silent dream of becoming a children’s literature author despite their publishing company telling him no until he got his first book _Simon Says_ published under a pseudonym—from the whole world, that is, until Ten found out in one of the many twists of fate that only ever seem to work in their favour.

“He almost dumped me right there.”

“Dude, _I_ am about to dump you right here, what the fuck! You never told me!” Mark whines, face swollen and splotchy after two intense hours of heartfelt conversation and truth-bearing sobs.

“That was the point of the pseudonym thing! Nobody was supposed to know! I write _sexy novels_ , c’mon—” Johnny is laughing, even though his eyes are red rimmed from crying alongside Mark all along, and it’s the most alive Mark remembers feeling away from Donghyuck in a long time back.

“And I’m your best friend!”

“Well, _my best friend_ didn’t tell me about how he was meeting with a cute guy nor about his poetry, so I think we’re even!”

And life, too, Mark thinks to himself as he leans his head on Johnny’s shoulder while they play a show which name he cannot remember on his TV, may be worth living because he’s got him—this mix of a big brother and a mentor and a best friend and found family that is Johnny Suh, and Ten and the way he can try to make things work if only because they support him. Johnny says he’ll be there when Mark talks to Ten about the poems when he gives him his final novel draft and Mark smiles and tells Johnny to gift him a signed copy of his children’s book, and then they both spend the evening watching movies and eating stale popcorn until Mark falls asleep right against Johnny’s chest, eyes stinging from all the crying and mouth parted as he rests for the first time in weeks, shielded away from the demons for one night after letting go of some the pressure making making pain explode behind his forehead, hammering at his temples.

Donghyuck awaits for him in his dreams, but that, too, Mark’s come to expect.

Some things you can never know, but others—they’re just set to haunt you, until kingdom come.

### Someone isn’t me

The atmosphere at the club feels strange to Donghyuck when he walks in through the door without Mark Lee by his side for the first time in months.

Everything is in the same place it’s always been—the black marble bar where he first met Mark, the more secluded tables at the far back where they would sit and talk for hours about everything and nothing at all, the same faceless crowd on the dancefloor Donghyuck used to point and laugh at replaying in his mind all the times it was him begging for attention from every other man before he found in Mark the only person he wanted to stare at. Everything is in the same place it’s always been, but when Donghyuck sits down on a stool by the bar, orders himself a double gin to drown his heartache, he tells himself that maybe it is him who has changed too much for things to back to how they were before.

The shadow of Mark’s smile haunts Donghyuck while he swallows down tears alongside his drink, and the stars he sees when his gaze grows blurry with the alcohol haze resemble too closely the ones shining in Mark’s eyes. And it is ironic, Donghyuck bitterly thinks as he drags himself to entangle himself in between the mass of bodies grinding together in the dancefloor in search for some distraction from his thoughts, the way he’s always come to the club looking for sex yet how much he now despises the idea of being under someone else that won’t know his body the way Mark does. It’s ironic, because Donghyuck never wanted Mark to know him yet he was the one who crawled inside Mark’s chest almost without knocking, learning every crevice and twist and quirk until the memory of the shape of his every word will crawl behind Donghyuck forever, a heavy chain for him to pull on the price to pay for having enjoyed a gentleness that wasn’t ever meant for him to feel.

As he sways his hips along to the rhythm of the music, hands attached to a body he cannot see landing on his waist and feeling up the smooth skin underneath his shirt in a caress that almost makes him feels sick, Donghyuck realizes he doesn’t know when his relationship with Mark stopped being just sex and turned into something deeper—how he cannot tell if he ever was something less than a huge liability for Mark to deal with, too much pain and too much greed congregated into a body that could only ever be sated with his kiss; how he cannot tell if Mark ever was something other than perfect to Donghyuck, with his stories and his smiles and the way he made duty out of the way he took care of Donghyuck’s every confessed flaw.

Still, when Donghyuck wraps his arms around yet another nameless man and licks into his mouth as if he will find the medicine for his hollow chest on his tongue, he reminds himself that he is the one at fault of everything because of his incapability to ever feel love again—because Renjun took his heart away with him when he left and Donghyuck was left with nothing; an empty shell he can try to fill but that will always lack, no matter how hard he tries, the ability to forget all the pain that has turned him into the tiring, pushy, clingy, heartless creature he is today—the ability to let himself love Mark Lee the way he knows himself to be loved by him, selflessly and honestly, the two words Donghyuck had to erase from his account.

Donghyuck wants too much, takes too much, and will always remain enamored with the one man who broke his heart; and in the end, what he’s left with is always this: a cold bed in the morning and a mess between his legs about which he cannot bring himself to care, no relief for his desire even though he’s tried to be fucked in all the ways he remembers to like and dark coffee instead of blood thrumming inside his veins, and a smile that never quite reaches his eyes when he finally lifts his head to look at Jeno when he comes to ask if he’s doing alright.

“I’m fine,” Donghyuck lies, even though he’s never been, even though he’ll never be, “Hey, why don’t you bring Jaemin to the show next weekend? I don’t feel like enduring the reception without the both of you there with me.”

Jeno nods and doesn’t comment on the bruises on Donghyuck’s neck, on the slight trembling of his hands when he grips his phone with enough force for his fingers to turn white at the tips. He knows the truth, but at least this he spares him—the mortification of admitting himself broken beyond repair, aching for things that always escape from him with the faintest blow of better air.

“Let’s go eat something after though, then,” is the only thing Jeno says, opening his planner so they can start going through Donghyuck’s schedule for the week together, “reception food is shit anyways,” and they leave it at that.

### The weight of you

Donghyuck is still clad in the last outfit he wore on the runway when it happens.

The reception hall where the fashion show’s so-called after party is being held is bustling with a crowd of people whose names Donghyuck would rather forget if only it meant he’d be able to get out of the mess that following his modelling dream has made out of him; fake laughter echoing across the walls, and faker stares that speak of grudges held at knifepoint tight enough to last for a lifetime. Donghyuck’s still blond hair is styled back away from his dolled up face, a mesh and leather combined set of clothes hanging elegantly from his shoulders, and even though Jeno and Jaemin are by his side for the mere sake of his own health, for the first time in years, he feels _lost_.

Donghyuck told himself, in a serious one-on-one with his hungover reflection on the mirror a month after Renjun took his plane and left him behind, that he would never let himself depend on another person again. Loving made him soft, loving made him weak, and in return for his vulnerability he received kisses turned into knives being stuck into his back at the first chance of leaving for something better, because there would always be more to have than a simple boy suffering from his own dreams like him. He promised himself he would never allow himself that mistake again, that Renjun had been the first person he’d ever loved and Renjun too would be the last, that he would never bestow that power over him on any other man again.

He promised, but as he swallows down his fourth flute of bubbly champagne in a desperate attempt at quieting down the nerves of knowing himself unable to reach out for Mark through the phone when his insecurities get the best of him just to know himself supported by someone who doesn’t owe him anything, he realizes that he’s grown too fond of someone once again, and that it might as well ruin him just as much as the first time did.

“I can’t wait to go home,” he sighs when Jaemin grimaces at the taste of the appetizer he brings to his mouth next, “These receptions suck so much, I swear. It’s no wonder I used to skip them all the time.”

“Ah, yes, those days when I had to play bad cop and guard the doors so you wouldn’t get yourself in trouble,” Jeno chuckles with a fond roll of his eyes, cheeks already a little pink from the drinks he’s allowing himself to have tonight, “I’m so glad we’ve grown past that stage, you know.”

Donghyuck knows, just like he understands much more than he lets on—that Jeno worries and Jeno cares and that is why he tries to play the role of a parent and an agent all the while being his best friend, that he and Jaemin love him enough for him to never should have had to feel unsafe.

He knows many, many things, but still, nothing could have prepared him for the sight he is made to witness right in front of his eyes the next time he blinks.

A year away from the last time Donghyuck saw him, Huang Renjun still looks majestic in an all-black fitted suit.

The moment his eyes land on the familiar face, Donghyuck’s breath gets caught in his throat, and all the lights in the hall seem to shine only on the ethereal figure that is Renjun’s back holding his head up and tall, effortlessly elegant and unfairly pretty among a crowd of people that could never aim to reach the heels of his shoes. His hair is caramel brown, swiped back to expose his forehead and not moving an inch not even when he leans forward to grab the shoulder of the orange-haired boy standing in front of him as he laughs; not even when he locks eyes with said boy as if there were nobody else but them in the room, the exact same way he used to look at Donghyuck a lifetime ago; not even when he presses a furtive kiss to his cheek, disguised as a drunken whisper gone wrong at the last minute, still irrefutable proof of the truth everyone else but Donghyuck would choose to ignore: Renjun did not come alone, and he’s found a replacement for the pretty picture that was to have Donghyuck hanging from his arm on every party they came together at, and Donghyuck honestly, genuinely had expected, if there ever came a time for a moment like this to happen, his heart to hurt a hundred times worse than it does tonight.

“Shit,” Jeno gasps, following Donghyuck’s eye line until he too is staring at the surreal sight taking place right in front of their noses, “Hyuckie, oh my God—are you, do you want—should we—”

“Holy fuck,” Jaemin mutters, eyes wide as his hand reaches over to squeeze Donghyuck’s wrist, as if he were conscious enough to notice the gesture, “Is that _the_ Liu Yangyang right next to him? Like, the rapper?”

“The hell I know, Jaemin? C’mon, it’s—”

“Shut up,” Donghyuck cuts off their panicked bickering, uncharacteristically calm when Renjun turns his head amidst a shared giggle with his companion and finally catches them staring at him, eyes meeting for the first time in over a year, “It’s alright. You don’t have to be so nervous.”

“Donghyuck,” Jeno hisses, trying to catch his gaze and failing, “We don’t have to stay, we can—”

“I’m gonna go talk to him,” Donghyuck says, and he wishes he could feel something other than numb as he takes in the shape of Renjun’s parted mouth while he watches him, as if struck by lightning in the middle of the sea, “Wait for me before leaving, alright? I believe I’ve got some issues to fix.”

He doesn’t give them enough time to reply before he’s walking over to the other side of the room, feeling light as a feather as he moves over the tiled floor even though he knows he should be at least anxious, nervous, undeniably hurt. He walks as if on a cloud, as if he were letting go of the weight of his past behind him with every step he takes towards Renjun, until he feels so _free_ that even when he comes to stand right in front of the man he once thought to be his only one, he fears nothing but the way he’s been so blinded, so ignorant, all this time. “Renjun-ah. It’s been a while.”

“Donghyuck,” Renjun says back, soft where Donghyuck could have expected him to sound strained, maybe startled at his sudden appearance, still gentle despite the time and the pain, “Woah, I didn’t expect to see you here. You look stunning.”

“Yeah, I joined the show at the last moment, to be honest,” Donghyuck chuckles, and his eyes fall on the tense figure of the boy with orange hair standing a few feet behind Renjun, “Hi, I believe we don’t know each other? I’m Lee Donghyuck.”

“Yeah,” the boy says, and his voice sounds tight and a little rough over the syllables of a tongue Donghyuck can tell is not his own, “My name’s Liu Yangyang. I’m—”

“He’s—”

“It’s alright,” Donghyuck rushes to say, and for the first time in weeks he feels his chest expand when he breathes in, lungs open as they welcome the breeze announcing the arrival of a new spring, “I’m glad to meet you, you know. You don’t have to worry about it.”

Yangyang’s eyes turn to the ground, as if he fears Donghyuck would see right through him if he stared, but Renjun’s eyes lock with his and they speak more than a thousand words ever could. They speak of how he’d truly loved Donghyuck, once, and how he had never wanted to hurt him even though in the end some things might have turned out to go wrong. They speak of how he’s found the love he too lost when he left in Yangyang, who is surely a boy as good as there can be because that’s all Renjun deserves and more, and how none of it relates to Donghyuck. They speak of how highly he regards him, how he would never dream of comparing what they had to anything else—how each love is different and none of them are less because of it, the heart seeking for comfort in the strangest ways and always finding it still.

Renjun’s eyes give away his thoughts when he looks at Donghyuck, and it brings back to Donghyuck’s mind the memory of a boy whose eyes, too, tell the stories his lips would never dare to speak about, be it because they’re unholy or simply too intimidating to be dealt with in broad daylight.

Donghyuck looks at Renjun—at his first adult kiss, at his first real love, the first person he ever wanted to marry and the last he ever thought to want—and all he can think about is Mark, and his broken heart he’s shared with him and the lips he aches to heal with his own; and Donghyuck wonders how he could have been such an idiot not to realize the way he’d already fallen down the trap when he first started telling himself he would never love Mark Lee, how by the time he tried to push Mark away he’d already crawled so deep inside his chest there would be no surgery invasive enough to remove him from his soul.

“I came back for a play, and Yangyang here insisted to tag along,” Renjun says then, making Yangyang’s ears turn a cute shade of pink under his neon hair, and Donghyuck hopes for Renjun to still know him as much as he once did, enough to see that things might not be the way he too could have expected them to, “If you wanted to, I’d like to give you some tickets—you know, you could come see me with Jeno and Jaemin, if they’d like. It’d make me really happy if you’d accept.”

“I would love to,” Donghyuck says, and when he reaches over with his right hand to hold Renjun’s left it’s not because he wants to reclaim him, it’s not because he wants him to want him back. Those were the real fantasies he’d been living in his head all this time, the ones where he’s not good enough, the ones where he’s always the one getting left alone. But in fact, when their fingertips touch and no electricity sparkles, connection lost so long ago it’d be delusional to expect it to return, Donghyuck sees that reality is much clearer and much more gentler than he’d thought it to be—that what he wants is a boy with universes growing behind his eyelids and enough smiles to drown all the sadness in his world, a boy who wants him just as much, the one he needs to get back to before he too ruins all that. “Let’s talk later, alright? And I mean it. Please. It’s just—I have somewhere I really need to go right now.”

“Yeah, of course,” Renjun’s eyes are worried, and his hand squeezes Donghyuck’s own back with all the healthy affection for him he still keeps inside his chest and the divine redemption from all his mistakes Donghyuck has been searching for since the moment Renjun left, “Will you be alright?”

“Of course I’ll be.” Donghyuck smiles, real as the moonlight lighting up the street behind the curtains of the hall, and nods his head before letting go of Renjun’s hand. “It was good seeing you, please take care, okay? And—thank you, honestly, for everything.”

Renjun frowns in confusion but returns the nod, gentle just like in Donghyuck’s most cherished memories, and it somehow feels like closure of some sorts. He bows to him, then to Yangyang, and when he turns on his heel to leave, Donghyuck looks back at them over his shoulder to say, “Hey—Renjun, Yangyang. Let’s be friends, alright?”

And with that, he rushes back to Jeno and then out of the back door, fancy clothes scattered over the floor of a changing room at the speed of lightning, leaving behind a weight he wishes he won’t have to carry anymore.

 **leejen:** _neocitypublishing.kr/contact/editors/ten_chittaphon_leechaiyapornkul/1_

_good luck !!! tell us how it goes !!!!!! <3_

### Everybody’s got their demons

The backseat of the cab Donghyuck climbs into when he rushes out of the changing room after his hurried exit from the reception hall is too small for a feeling as big as the one bubbling up inside his chest and leaving him short of breath.

“Where to?” The driver asks, staring at the boy wearing loose, awfully plain and comfy clothes alongside heavy makeup and a bold hairstyle as if dealing with panicked guys almost fighting to catch in some air after running away from somewhere else was a normal occurrence.

Tonight, though, Donghyuck has greater things to worry about than how he is perceived by the world. As he almost shoves the screen of his phone under the driver’s nose with a choked out _“As fast as you can, please”_ and then fastens his seatbelt when the man steps on the gas, Donghyuck closes his eyes and spares a prayer for a God he doesn’t believe in, begging Him to tell Mark Lee that he’s sorry, that he wants to be better for him, that he’ll do anything for a chance.

Ten Lee turned out to be extremely helpful through the phone. In all honesty, Donghyuck hadn’t been sure that his call to his most likely professional number would be answered this close to midnight, but he’s nothing if not persistent when there is something regarding the affairs of the heart at stake. The angry tone lacing Mark’s editor’s voice when he’d finally picked up the phone has turned into confusion when Donghyuck had told him, “My name’s Lee Donghyuck, and I’m friends with Mark Lee,” untrue as ever in his choice of words because friends do not ache to be together until bones turn to dust together under the same grave, “can I—I need to talk to Johnny Suh, please. It’s urgent.”

In a few hours, when he looks at this moment in retrospect, Donghyuck will feel guilty that he scared the both of them with his call, that they believed something to have happened to Mark simply because Donghyuck needed to know where his house was. But upon hearing his name, Johnny had sounded as if he understood; and instead of hating Donghyuck like he’d expected him to, instead of calling him out for hurting Mark like Donghyuck knows he’s surely told him about, Johnny just gasps and sends him the address via text telling him to update him with whatever direction this turn of events takes.

But right now, when the car comes to a stop in front of the apartments building where Mark Lee is supposed to live, Donghyuck can’t bring himself to feel anything other than nervous, worried, and yet so ready to do anything it takes to show Mark that he’s always cared—that it was all real for him, too, and that he thinks he’s read the signals right and wants to make it good again, that he will tear himself down to shreds if that’s what it takes to go back to how they were.

For as anxious as he’s been up to this point, though, the next few moments pass by in a messy blur. One second Donghyuck is giving the driver a wad of bills for payment and the next he’s ran up the exterior stairs of the building until he is standing in front of the door labeled _‘B’_ on the third floor, and before he can notice his knuckles are rapidly knocking against hardwood, heart beating right on his throat as he gets ready to spit it all out, to leave himself bare and latent right in front of Mark Lee’s eyes for him to take as he wishes.

Years down the line from now, Donghyuck will remain unable to forget the perplexed look on Mark’s face when he opens his door, his hair mussed up and his edges rubbed soft with sleep and still so utterly _breathtaking_ , the vivid image of the person Donghyuck has been aching to wake up next to for weeks now. “Donghyuck?” Mark asks, slow as if it were hard for him to find the strength behind the syllables, as if they’d grown foreign on his tongue, “What are you d—how did you get here?”

“No, shut up, just—listen to me, please,” Donghyuck says, hands shaking horribly as he closes them into tight fists by his sides, trying his best to tame down the airy tremble of his voice as he speaks before Mark’s dumbfounded stare, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Mark, shit—I’m horrible, you know I am, but this is just—I suck, I’ve told you so many times all I do is ruin everything I touch and so I fucked up because that’s all I know how to do, and I never wanted to see it because I’m scared out of my mind but I’m so in love with you it hurts.” He didn’t notice when he’s started crying, but when Donghyuck brings a hand to his cheek it is wet with tears and his chest almost feels too tight for him to speak, “I’m in love with you and I think that angsty book of yours deserves a happy ending, and I—I’ll understand, if you don’t want to ever see me again, if you hate me or if I read it all wrong and you never wanted me in your life in the first place, but if you’ll have me; shit, Mark. I’ll explain everything, I’ll tell you what happened and what I’ve always felt and how much I’d do for you, if you just—”

And before he can finish talking, before he can throw himself to the ground to bleed out all his pain and lies and show Mark his whole, safely hidden truth, Mark’s lips crash onto him like a tidal wave meeting shore after an odyssey, like the arrival of spring after the cold winter, like returning to a home you’d lost for too long.

_At last_

_I’m turning on the light._

### There is happiness

Crowds like the one awaiting behind the curtain on the hall of this centric Seoul library used to make Mark want to crawl inside a hole on the ground and hold his breath until the whole world forgot about his existence, overwhelmed by the extent to which his lies had managed to deceive people into expecting something great from his words.

He remembers, with a much healthier kind of nostalgia and definitely an infinitely smaller amount of pain now, just how Eunkyung had held his hand minutes before he walked on the little set up stage for the release of _Mad City_ a year and some ago, how she’d tried her best and calming down his nerves and making him believe it was all deserved even though he could not believe it to be, and how he’d already known then that they were doomed to fall apart sooner than later, a jet black heart dying down inside his ribcage.

Today, Mark is certain that she won’t be sitting among the public, that she won’t be awaiting for him in the backstage to hug him and tell him he did great, but it is for the best and he unconsciously believes that she is there supporting him from the distance like the friends they will one day go back to be. Instead of her, what Mark’s got with him right now is a very focused Donghyuck sitting on his lap as he applies concealer to the latest scratch of their cat to Mark’s face, and that, too, is something else he wouldn’t change for the world.

 _The 7th Sense_ might not be the novel of his dreams—it might not be what he’d wanted to write in the first place, sci-fi and sadness and final hope blending together to create a dark mix the early critics have already labeled as _a secret recipe for future success_ but that Mark would rather call _a portrait of the mess that my life has become_ —, but it his novel nevertheless, and the trip that was to write it while going through so many experiences he’d believed himself in a dream has made it grow fond in Mark’s heart, and so he cherishes it and hopes it will be liked, that people will read it with the care it requires, and that it won’t carry with it the disaster that _Mad City_ brought upon his feet.

The process of writing it was exhausting, life-draining, and at the same time the best thing that could have ever happened to Mark. Donghyuck walked into his life the day he wrote the first word on his first draft, and he returned to him right on time to give Mark the energy and the inspiration he needed to bring it to a satisfying end; and all along, Donghyuck showed him that there is still enough love to drown an ocean in Mark’s chest, and that he deserves the care he receives in return—that even though they both are a little bit broken and a little bit sad, it will all be alright if they can work on it together, if they support each other and help themselves grow. Just like that, Donghyuck gives therapy a try and Mark understands that no relationship is the same as the last and that it doesn’t have to mean either of them are bad—and Mark meets Jeno and Jaemin and also the famous Renjun and his boyfriend Yangyang, and in return Donghyuck finds in Ten an ally and undying support in Johnny Suh, and together they work as an ecosystem of sorts Mark never wants to find himself outside of.

“Get used to the cheers, pretty,” Donghyuck giggles softly into Mark’s ear, pressing a soft kiss to his jaw before standing up and helping him straighten his clothes, “For when they release the poetry book. It’s going to be _life-changing_.”

“You’re too nice to me,” Mark chuckles, then shakes his head when Donghyuck frowns and reminds him that is something none of them are allowed to say anymore; growth of the sweetest sort. “I love you, Donghyuck. I really do.”

“I know you do, silly,” Donghyuck smiles, gentle fingers caressing the curve of Mark’s cheekbone before he presses one last kiss to his chapped lips, “and you know I love you too. To the stars, alright?”

Mark laughs softly, squeezing his arms around Donghyuck’s middle in a heartfelt hug before Ten starts yelling at him to be ready to walk on stage in a minute. “If it’s with you, sure,” he replies, eyes closing into crescent moons with the width of his smile, the most sincere he’s ever shared with the world, “Everything for you, alright?”

“Sap,” Donghyuck grins, a kiss left on the tip of Mark’s nose before he rushes away to wait with Johnny on the sideline; and when the curtains finally open, Mark is welcomed with a loud round of applause and a copy of his book resting on every attendant’s lap.

And today, after a long journey along the lines of his crippling sadness and destroyed self-esteem and the curves brought about by a boy as good as captivating as Donghyuck, Mark Lee can proudly say that he’s no longer scared, that it all is well-deserved,

that the most beautiful moments in life are always meant to be enjoyed to the max, with the people you love, sacrifice worthy if only because of the path.

_a boy so gentle he makes you breathe_

_among the flames of hell, with his fire kiss—_

_he’s the summer to your spring_

_this might as well be all you need._

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so so so much for reading! it makes me so happy that you spend a little time of your day reading this work (ꈍᴗꈍ)♡ please leave kudos and/or comment if you enjoyed this story, and you can find me on [twt](https://twitter.com/hanniecuqui) and [cc](https://curiouscat.me/peekatom) <3.


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